Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA)

February update: Accelerating adaptation and enabling trust between LLMs What’s new at ARIA

Our February update is live. 🚀

Dive in for:
- The latest news from ARIA
- PD @yannickwurm.bsky.social on his Accelerated Adaptation programme
- A Q&A with Samuele Marro – a Creator driving a pre-programme discovery project for Scaling Trust

ariaresearch.substack.com/p/february-u...

Technical Specialist - AI Hardware Systems Job Opening: Technical Specialist - AI Hardware Systems at ARIA in London.

We're also looking for a Technical Specialist in Scaling Compute. Specialising in AI hardware systems, you'll work with the Programme Director to shape and deliver a bold programme of research aimed at reducing the cost of AI hardware by 1000x.

Apply by 15 March: aria.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/...

Scaling Inference Lab The Scaling Inference Lab is an open AI testbed within our Scaling Compute programme prioritising rapid iteration, open collaboration, and long-term sustainability.

In an expansion of our Scaling Compute programme, we’re dedicating £50m to the creation of the Scaling Inference Lab – an open AI testbed designed to increase the ability of startups to test new compute technologies with the goal to rapidly reduce cost.

Learn more: link.aria.org.uk/SIL-bluesky

Led by Jacques Carolan, this initiative seeks to reach the central nervous system through the body’s natural pathways, aiming for a system deployable in under 30 minutes.

Share your concept papers with us by March 17

Learn more here: link.aria.org.uk/9cc719MSNbs

Today, we are launching a £50m programme – Massively Scalable Neurotechnologies – to decouple advanced brain therapies from complex surgery.

Enduring Atmospheric Platforms ARIA’s Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme aims to develop persistent, autonomous stratospheric flight to unlock the next frontier of global connectivity.

Could you help unlock a digital infrastructure layer between the Earth and space?

Full proposals are open for our £50m-backed Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme.

Apply by 2 April: link.aria.org.uk/EAP-programm...

Building on the momentum from our first Activation Partners, we’re preparing to launch a call for 8-10 new partners to design activities that accelerate the pace and translation of breakthroughs with a key focus on AI applied to science.

Discover our early thinking: link.aria.org.uk/AP_CN

Universal Fabricators

Backed by £50m, our Universal Fabricators programme will leverage breakthroughs in protein engineering + build a new, interdisciplinary community that can harness proteins to produce a functionally universal range of materials at scale. Apply by 9 March + join our webinar: link.aria.org.uk/UF-BS

Accelerated Adaptation This programme seeks to explore potential pathways to accelerate the adaptation of wild species in order to prevent biodiversity loss and secure the natural infrastructure that underpins our global ec...

Humans are changing the environment faster than wild species can naturally adapt.

Backed by £54m, our Accelerated Adaptation programme will explore pathways to make wild species more resilient to rapid environmental change.

Submit concept papers by 6 March: link.aria.org.uk/AA-BS

Scaling Trust Backed by nearly £50m, this programme sits within the Trust Everything, Everywhere opportunity space and seeks to create the capability for AI agents to securely coordinate, negotiate, and verify with...

AI agents are becoming more commonplace – but their inability to securely coordinate is stifling their potential.

Backed by ~£50m, our Scaling Trust programme will create new trust infrastructure to move agents from solo operators to secure collaborators.

Apply by 24 March: link.aria.org.uk/ST-BS

January update: Thoughts from our outgoing CEO, world-changing founders, and bio-inspired robot hands What’s new at ARIA

Our January update is live.

Dive in to find the latest news, events and opportunities from our community – plus thoughts from our outgoing CEO @ilangur.bsky.social, a look at Fifty Years' 5050 UK programme, and more. ↓

ariaresearch.substack.com/p/january-up...

A short biography of ARIA’s new CEO How Kathleen Fisher topped the list of candidates to succeed Ilan Gur

As Kathleen Fisher prepares to join us in February, dive into our incoming CEO’s track record of impact and reflections from those she’s worked with, to learn why she’s the right leader for ARIA's next phase. ↓

uk20.substack.com/p/a-short-bi...

5050 — Fifty Years 5050 helps great scientists and engineers start and build deep tech startups.

Applications are now open for the third 5050 UK cohort – a 14-week programme from the world-leading deeptech company builder @fiftyyears.com – apply by 15 February: www.fiftyyears.com/5050

The UK government is backing AI that can run its own lab experiments A competition calling for research projects involving so-called AI scientists shows just how fast this technology is moving.

"To do things at the frontier, we've got to know what the frontier is."

@ARIA_research CTO Ant discusses exploring the limits of AI Scientists across our newly announced portfolio in @technologyreview.com

link.aria.org.uk/MITtechrevie...

Reeves tells Davos: Britain is the best place in the world to invest Ministers to highlight government focus on stability and certainty in a volatile world

As part of these scholarships, ARIA will coordinate internships, connecting scholars with ARIA Creators and world-leading research teams, startups and labs across our network: www.gov.uk/government/n... (2/2)

Today the government announced new measures to attract exceptional talent to the UK, including new university scholarships for International Mathematical Olympiad gold medallists. (1/2)

Backed by £6 millionwe're supporting 12 projects to see if autonomous systems can reason, plan, and run experiments in the real world.

Discover the projects: link.aria.org.uk/AIscifpbs

Currently - Inside ARIA - BBC Sounds Evan Davis goes inside the UK’s ambitious new Advanced Research and Invention Agency.

“A British bet worth watching."

@evanhd.bsky.social explores the economics of our mission on BBC Radio 4 – roughly £5 per citizen to de-risk science with the potential to catalyse new trillion-pound industries.

Listen to it here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Join us and Wales Innovation Network for a session on ARIA's approach and how our programmes connect with emerging research and innovation. ↓

📆 Monday 9 Feb 2026
🕜 12:00-13:00 GMT
📍 Online

Complete this form by 4 Feb 2026 to attend: forms.office.com/e/L0irYGJiEb

The world is rich with information hidden from human senses. Our latest opportunity space, Extending Our Perception, explores combining AI and sensors to create Hypersensory Intelligence to perceive reality in new ways + catalyse breakthroughs across disciplines. ↓

link.aria.org.uk/EOPbluesky

A look back at 2025 From gaining momentum in our first seven programmes and hosting our first Summit, to growing our portfolio of opportunity spaces with our new Programme Directors, we’re reflecting on ARIA’s 2025.

As we prepare for our next chapter, we’re reflecting on our progress this year.

From the momentum built across our first seven programmes to an expanded portfolio of opportunity spaces, dive into our 2025 highlights. ↓

link.aria.org.uk/2025-bluesky

Enduring Atmospheric Platforms Backed by £50m, the Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme sits within the Scoping Our Planet opportunity space and aims to unlock a new layer of planetary infrastructure by developing low-cost, per...

Enduring Atmospheric Platforms, our new programme led by PD Rico Chandra, is aiming to unlock the stratosphere as the backbone of the next-gen communications – crucial to AI’s projected £13-20 trillion economic potential.

Submit your concept paper by 19 Jan. ↓

link.aria.org.uk/EAP-programm...

Funding | Sustained Viral Resilience Backed by £46m, this programme sits within the Sculpting Innate Immunity opportunity space and seeks to create a new class of medicines that provide durable, broad-spectrum protection against respirat...

Full proposals are now open for Sustained Viral Resilience – backed by £46m, this programme is looking to create a new class of medicines by engineering the innate immune system.

Submit by 22 January. ↓

link.aria.org.uk/SVR-programm...

November update: A Safeguarded AI pivot + real-time climate monitoring What’s new at ARIA

Our November update is here. 👀

Find the latest news, events and opportunities, plus insights across our work. ↓

ariaresearch.substack.com/p/november-u...

Technical Specialist - Neuroscience/Neurotechnologies Job Opening: Technical Specialist - Neuroscience/Neurotechnologies at ARIA in London.

We’re hiring for 2 Technical Specialist roles supporting @jacquescarolan.bsky.social on programmes like this:
Precision Neurotechnologies, 12-month maternity cover: link.aria.org.uk/pn-tspecmc-bs
Massively Scalable Neurotechnologies (potential programme), 36 months: link.aria.org.uk/MSN-tspecrol...

Scalable Neural Interfaces Neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders have overwhelming societal and economic impacts. We need a new suite of tools that enable us to interface, at scale, with the human brain.

Neurological disorders cost the EU & USA >$1.7T annually, yet effective neurotech is limited by surgical complexity.

We’re scoping a programme to build brain surgery-free interfaces, allowing responsive, outpatient therapies for earlier intervention. ↓
link.aria.org.uk/SNI-MSN-thes...

Engineering Ecosystem Resilience Living organisms underpin our food, climate stability, and materials – ecological collapse threatens the foundations of civilisation. By pairing advanced monitoring with resilience-boosting interventi...

Seed funding within our broader Engineering Ecosystem Resilience space is also now open. We’re offering up to £500k each for high-potential, out-of-the-box ideas that fall within this space but are not captured by our emerging programme.
link.aria.org.uk/EER-seeds-BS

Programme Development | Engineering Ecosystem Resilience Read the programme thesis for our current thinking and discover some of the ways we've shaped our programme direction.

Humans are changing the environment faster than wild species can naturally adapt.

Our new thesis – Accelerated Adaptation – explores whether methods to accelerate adaptation can enhance ecosystem resilience and prevent species loss. ↓
link.aria.org.uk/AA-thesis-BS

Introducing ARIA’s next CEO Kathleen Fisher will join us in February 2026.

We’re excited to introduce our new CEO: Kathleen Fisher.

ARIA is at an inflection point. We’re moving from launching ambitious research to driving it forward. Kathleen is the ideal leader to scale our work.

Read more: link.aria.org.uk/ceoannouncem...

Programme development | Trust Everything, Everywhere We are in the process of building a multi-year R&D programme within this space. Our programmes are designed to advance complex, large-scale ideas that require coordinated investment and management acr...

As AI collapses coordination costs, our new thesis - Scaling Trust - explores how scalable trust infrastructure could usher in a world of many AI agents, capable of mobilising, negotiating, and verifying on our behalf across digital + physical spaces ↓
link.aria.org.uk/ST-thesis-BS