Iconic announces PhD student funding through UK Government's AI investment programme
The wider industry partnership also supports the next generation of AI research with two new UK AI laboratories led by University College London and the University of Oxford
Iconic, the interactive storytelling company, has today announced its participation in a landmark UK Government-backed artificial intelligence research initiative, providing funding for two additional PhD students as part of a £60 million investment to establish two new national AI research laboratories led by University College London (UCL) and the University of Oxford.
The five-year programme, funded by UK Research and Innovation's (UKRI) Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), brings together leading academic institutions and industry partners to accelerate the development of cutting-edge AI technologies with real-world impact.
Iconic, who was already providing economic, compute, and supervision support to a PhD student from the former FLAIR lab at Oxford (now part of The British Open-ended Learning and Discovery lab or ‘BOLD’ founded as part of the investment), is extending their support for two additional PhDs students who will be working in the newly established UK AI laboratory with Oxford, Imperial College London and UCL.
The students’ research will focus on exploring new learning methods; developing AI systems that work alongside people rather than treating humans simply as sources of data, enabling new forms of entertainment and multi-agent discovery; as well as looking to advance resource-efficient AI systems.
Iconic’s investment reflects the company’s long-term commitment to supporting world-class research, nurturing the next generation of AI talent, and shaping the future of entertainment experiences all while contributing to the UK's position as a global leader in artificial intelligence.
Speaking about the investment, Chief Scientist at Iconic, Borja Gonzalez Leon, said: "AI is creating entirely new possibilities for entertainment, but real progress will come from exploring new ways for AI to learn and solve problems, not simply doing more of what already exists. BOLD brings together world-leading researchers to tackle these big challenges, and we're proud to support the next generation of talent through our PhD scholarships. By investing in ambitious research today, we're helping ensure the future of AI and entertainment is shaped here in the UK."
The announcement also further strengthens Iconic's ongoing partnership with the University of Oxford and reinforces the company's commitment to supporting responsible AI innovation.
Speaking about the investment, Associate Professor Jakob Foerster, Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, said: “BOLD is building and supercharging an innovation ecosystem. Our industry and infrastructure partners are essential to that vision, providing the compute, investment, expertise, and support for studentships and research posts that allow us to pursue ambitious bluesky science at scale while ensuring our discoveries can be translated into real-world disruption.
“We want BOLD to become a blueprint for how academia and industry can work together towards open-source and open-science to advance AI for the benefit of everyone."
Tim Rocktäschel, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, University College London (UCL) added: "We are very excited to be supported by Iconic with two PhD stipends. It is a fantastic example of industry and academic collaboration and we are looking forward to working together in interesting open-ended problems."