OpenAI commits $7.5 million to independent AI alignment research fund

OpenAI said on 19 February it will provide $7.5 million to support independent research aimed at reducing risks from advanced artificial intelligence, as concerns grow about the safety of increasingly capable AI systems.

The funding will go to The Alignment Project, a global research fund created by the UK AI Security Institute (UK AISI), with Renaissance Philanthropy administering the grant.

“As AI systems become more capable and more autonomous, alignment research needs to both keep pace and scale diversity,” OpenAI said in a statement. The company added that ensuring advanced AI “is safe and beneficial to everyone cannot be achieved by any single organisation.”

The contribution will help expand one of the largest dedicated funding pools for independent AI safety research, bringing total support for The Alignment Project to more than £27 million ($34 million).

OpenAI said frontier AI developers are uniquely positioned to conduct research that depends on large-scale computing and advanced models, but stressed the need for work outside major labs. “Independent research remains essential,” the company said, noting that external teams can explore ideas that “may not align neatly with any one organisation’s roadmap.”

Individual projects will typically receive between £50,000 and £1 million, and may also gain access to computing resources and expert guidance.

The company said its funding will not alter how projects are selected. “Our funding does not create a new program or selection process, nor influence the existing process,” OpenAI said, adding that the grant simply increases the number of vetted projects that can be supported.

The research portfolio will span fields including economics, game theory, cognitive science, cryptography and computational complexity, reflecting the broad, interdisciplinary nature of AI safety challenges.

OpenAI said the pace and unpredictability of AI development make outside research particularly important. “Because progress toward AGI may ultimately depend on fundamental breakthroughs that change the shape of the alignment problem … it’s important to support research that would matter even if today’s dominant methods turn out not to scale,” the company said.

The UK AI Security Institute, part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, will oversee the program through its existing grantmaking pipeline.

OpenAI said strengthening the wider ecosystem is essential as AI systems grow more powerful. “A healthy alignment ecosystem depends on independent teams testing diverse assumptions, developing alternative frameworks, and exploring conceptual, theoretical, and blue-sky ideas,” the company said.

The company added that it will continue its own safety work while supporting external efforts. “We believe democratisation, ‘AI resilience,’ and iterative deployment are essential,” OpenAI said, adding that the grant is “one step toward that goal.”