Andy Burnham announces G20 AI security standards for 2027

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham plans to initiate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) security standards under the aegis of the G20 during the UK presidency in 2027, he announced to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. This commitment aims to set in motion a process demanded by many nations, but which is opposed by the United States, the Trump government seeing it as a loss of sovereignty and an obstacle to the accelerated development of American AI. “We will work to agree on a set of principles and standards guaranteeing the transparency and access we need to prepare” to manage the new capabilities of this technology “and ensuring that the development of AI is safe,” explained the head of the Labor government.

Although it does not have a company capable of competing with the American and Chinese giants in artificial intelligence (AI), the United Kingdom has invested for several years in the evaluation and monitoring of the most advanced models. In 2024, he created the AI ​​Security Institute (AISI), which notably signed agreements with the most cutting-edge American companies to test their models before their commercialization. “I will put AI at the heart of the British presidency of the G20 next year,” promised Andy Burnham. As for the feasibility of the project, the British Prime Minister referred to the financial crisis of 2008 which saw the G20 “provide an urgent and practical response” to the situation. “We managed to agree on principles,” he recalled, “which everyone applied at the national level according to the modalities that suited them. And it worked.”

Skip the ad

Andy Burnham's position contrasts with that reiterated earlier Tuesday, at the same platform, by Donald Trump. The American head of state thus rejected “any attempt to build a globalist project” to control this technology. On Monday, the leaders of more than 20 countries including Canada, Germany and Australia had nevertheless pleaded for more supervision and for the possible creation, under the aegis of the UN, of an international regulatory body.

Fight against cyberattacks

Andy Burnham also indicated that the United Kingdom and the United States were currently working on a partnership intended to use AI to protect key infrastructure in both countries against cyberattacks. AI “is going to be a vital tool to keep us safe”, declared the head of the Labor government before the UN General Assembly to justify this collaboration.

British health infrastructure has already been the target of several large-scale cyberattacks, which notably affected dozens of hospitals in 2017 and 2024. Some have been attributed to groups affiliated with Russia. During his speech, Andy Burnham several times blamed Moscow, accused of being behind disinformation campaigns in the United Kingdom.

In the United States, around thirty local water supply networks in Minnesota were targeted in July by hackers, which specialists linked to Iran. In 2021, another operation attributed to a Russian criminal organization paralyzed the Colonial Pipeline, the largest in the United States, for several days.