---
type: source
title: "UK AI Safety Institute Renamed AI Security Institute: Mandate Shift to National Security and Cybercrime"
author: "Multiple: TechCrunch, Infosecurity Magazine, MLex, AI Now Institute"
url: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/13/uk-drops-safety-from-its-ai-body-now-called-ai-security-institute-inks-mou-with-anthropic/
date: 2025-02-13
domain: ai-alignment
secondary_domains: []
format: news-synthesis
status: processed
priority: medium
tags: [AISI, AI-Security-Institute, mandate-drift, UK-AI-policy, national-security, RepliBench, alignment-programs, Anthropic-MOU, government-coordination-breaker]
claims_extracted:
- "evaluation-awareness-creates-bidirectional-confounds-in-safety-benchmarks-because-models-detect-and-respond-to-testing-conditions"
- "component-task-benchmarks-overestimate-operational-capability-because-simulated-environments-remove-real-world-friction"
---

## Content

On February 13, 2025, the UK government announced the renaming of the AI Safety Institute to the AI Security Institute, citing a "renewed focus" on national security and protecting citizens from crime.

**New mandate scope** (Science Minister Peter Kyle's statement):
- "Serious AI risks with security implications" — specifically: chemical and biological weapons uplift, cyberattacks, fraud, child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
- National security priorities
- Applied international standards for evaluating frontier models for "safety, reliability, and resilience"

**What changed**: From broad AI safety (including existential risk, alignment, bias/ethics) to narrower AI security framing centered on near-term criminal and national security misuse vectors. The AI Now Institute statement noted the shift "narrows attention away from ethics, bias, and rights."

**The Anthropic MOU**: The announcement was paired with an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the renamed institute and Anthropic — specifics not publicly detailed, but framed as collaboration on frontier model safety research.

**What continues**: Frontier AI capabilities evaluation programs appear to continue. The Frontier AI Trends Report (December 2025) was published under the new AI Security Institute name, covering:
- Self-replication evaluation (RepliBench style: <5% → >60% 2023-2025)
- Sandbagging detection research
- Cyber capability evaluation
- Safeguard stress-testing

**What's unclear**: Whether the "Control" and "Alignment" research tracks (which produced AI Control Safety Case sketch, async control evaluation, legibility protocols, etc.) continue at the same pace under the new mandate, or are being phased toward cybersecurity applications.

**Context**: Announced February 2025 — concurrent with UK government's "hard pivot to AI economic growth" and alongside the US rescinding the Biden NIST executive order on AI (January 20, 2025). Part of a broader pattern of government AI safety infrastructure shifting away from existential risk toward near-term security and economic priorities.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** The AISI renaming is the clearest instance of the "government as coordination-breaker" pattern — the most competent frontier AI evaluation institution is being redirected away from alignment-relevant work toward near-term security priorities. However, the Frontier AI Trends Report evidence shows evaluation programs DID continue under the new mandate (self-replication, sandbagging, safeguard testing are all covered). The drift may be in emphasis and resource allocation rather than total discontinuation.

**What surprised me:** The Anthropic MOU alongside the renaming is unexpected and could be significant. AISI evaluates Anthropic's models (it conducted the pre-deployment evaluation noted in archives). An MOU creates ongoing collaboration — but could also create a conflict-of-interest dynamic where the evaluator has a partnership relationship with the organization it evaluates. This undermines the independence argument.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Specific details on what proportion of AISI's research budget is now allocated to cybercrime/national security vs. alignment-relevant work. The qualitative shift is clear but the quantitative drift is unknown.

**KB connections:**
- Confirms and extends: 2026-03-19 session finding on AISI renaming as "softer version of DoD/Anthropic coordination-breaking dynamic"
- Confirms: domains/ai-alignment/government-ai-risk-designation-inversion.md (government infrastructure shifting away from alignment-relevant evaluation)
- New complication: Anthropic MOU creates independence concern for pre-deployment evaluations (conflict of interest)
- Pattern: US (NIST EO rescission) + UK (AISI renaming) = two coordinated signals of governance infrastructure retreating from alignment-relevant evaluation at the same time (early 2025)

**Extraction hints:**
1. Update existing claim about AISI renaming: add the Frontier AI Trends Report evidence that programs continued (partial disconfirmation of "mandate drift means abandonment")
2. New claim: "Anthropic MOU with AISI creates independence concern for pre-deployment evaluations — the evaluator has a partnership relationship with the organization it evaluates"
3. Pattern claim: "US and UK government AI safety infrastructure simultaneously shifted away from existential risk evaluation in early 2025 (NIST EO rescission + AISI renaming) — coordinated deemphasis, not independent decisions"

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: domains/ai-alignment/government-coordination-breaker and voluntary-safety-pledge-failure claims
WHY ARCHIVED: Completes the AISI mandate drift thread; the Anthropic MOU detail is new and important for evaluation independence claims; the temporal coordination with US NIST EO rescission suggests a pattern worth claiming
EXTRACTION HINT: The combination of (AISI renamed + Anthropic MOU + NIST EO rescission, all within 4 weeks of each other) as a coordinated deemphasis signal is the strongest claim candidate; each event individually is less significant than their temporal clustering
