In his annual threat address on October 13, 2026, MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum warned that artificial intelligence could change the stakes on biological weapons and supercharge national security risks. To evaluate emerging technological dangers, MI5 established the AI Threat Assessment Centre. McCallum highlighted that state threat caseloads quadrupled over the past decade, forcing MI5 to allocate more resources to state aggression from Russia and Iran than during the Cold War.
AI risks to biological security
- ▪In a Massachusetts Institute of Technology exercise, non-science students used AI chatbots within an hour to identify four potential pandemic pathogens and detailed synthetic DNA ordering methods.
- ▪Unskilled rogue actors could use AI chatbots to compile information, plan experiments, and troubleshoot problems to develop bioweapons using existing pathogens.
- ▪AI tools can amplify the expertise of skilled scientists in well-resourced laboratories to identify genetic modifications that make existing pathogens more lethal.
- ▪MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum warned on October 13, 2026, that artificial intelligence has the potential to change the stakes on existing or new biological weapons.
- ▪In September 2026, AI company Anthropic reported five cases of scientists in unnamed countries attempting to use its Claude chatbot for potentially dangerous research on viruses or toxins.
MI5's AI Threat Assessment Centre
- ▪The AI Threat Assessment Centre is the third dedicated threat analysis unit established by MI5, alongside units focused on analyzing terrorism and state threats.
- ▪MI5 established the AI Threat Assessment Centre in 2026 at its Thames House headquarters in London to evaluate risks posed by artificial intelligence.
- ▪The AI Threat Assessment Centre collaborates with the UK AI Security Institute, National Crime Agency, and National Cyber Security Centre to produce unified threat assessments.
Russian state aggressions and hybrid warfare
- ▪Following the expulsion of nearly 1,000 Russian covert operatives across Europe since 2022, the Kremlin has increasingly relied on paying criminal proxies and volunteers to carry out hostile acts.
- ▪MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum identified Russia as the primary state aggressor targeting the United Kingdom and its NATO allies on October 13, 2026.
- ▪Russian military and intelligence services are escalating hybrid warfare campaigns, including a cyberattack on Polish energy infrastructure and a drone plot against a German cargo plane.
Iranian state threats against the UK
- ▪Iranian state threats in the United Kingdom have expanded from targeting oppositionists and Jewish communities toward harder targets, including British military sites.
- ▪Counter-terrorism police arrested and bailed seven individuals following an Iran-linked security incident involving three suspicious vans parked near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
- ▪MI5 investigations led to more than 50 arrests in the United Kingdom over the 12 months preceding October 2026 for Iran-linked hostile operations.
Extreme right-wing terrorism in the UK
- ▪Extreme right-wing terrorism cases in the United Kingdom have increased, driven by internet radicalization among young people tipping anti-immigration grievances into terrorist intent.
- ▪An MI5 investigation into a radicalized 13-year-old extreme right-wing individual in the United Kingdom provided intelligence that enabled an international partner to prevent an attack abroad.
MI5 resources focused on state threats
- ▪The state threats caseload investigated by MI5 quadrupled in the decade leading up to October 2026.
- ▪MI5 elevated national resilience—including protecting critical national infrastructure and countering technology threats—to front-rank mission status alongside countering state threats and terrorism.
- ▪MI5 is devoting more operational resources to countering foreign state threats in 2026 than at any point during the Cold War.
Policy gaps and proposed AI safeguards
- ▪Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security director Prof Tom Inglesby stated that no country currently has formal government policies in place to protect against the biological misuse of AI.
- ▪Prof Tom Inglesby advocated for formal independent evaluations of new artificial intelligence models prior to release to ensure biological dangers are eliminated.
Terrorist exploitation of artificial intelligence
- ▪MI5 has uncovered terrorist actors attempting to exploit artificial intelligence to improve reconnaissance, attack methodologies, and drone operations.
- ▪Police in India uncovered a suspected bioterrorism plot in which a doctor and several others allegedly used AI chatbot queries to assist in producing ricin.
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