The government has unveiled the 16 centres set to deliver a £200m, five-year programme to train 2,000 PhD students in artificial intelligence.

The initiative is a core part of the AI sector deal announced by Theresa May in 2018 and is supported by £100m from government, £78m from industry, and £23m from the participating universities. Google, AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce and the NHS are among the organisations to have backed the programme.

The sector deal was announced in April last year as the government faced criticism for failing to protect the UK’s tech sector in the run up to Brexit. A report by the House of Lords had claimed the UK lagged behind Germany, Canada and South Korea when it came to AI, as well as world-leaders China and the US.

Each of the AI Centres for Doctoral Training specialises in a different field, from environmental risk to healthcare and machine learning to natural language processing. One centre focuses on safety and trust and another on responsibility and transparency.

A total of 14 universities have been selected through the scheme, which has been managed by UK Research and Innovation. Twelve institutions, including Cambridge, Bristol and Imperial College London, have been allocated one centre each, while two universities – Edinburgh and UCL – boast two. The initiative was announced alongside an additional £170m government investment in bioscience PhDs.

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said the funding would ensure “research and development can thrive” in the UK. Chris Skidmore, the science minister, added: “[AI and bioscience] will transform the UK economy and create the highly-skilled workforce we need for the future.”

Commenting on the news, TechUK associate director Sue Daley said: “Creating a steady pipeline of tech talent is imperative to remaining a leader in the AI and data revolution. Government-industry collaboration is crucial to addressing the UK’s current digital skills gap and we are proud to see industry demonstrating its commitment to developing the next generation of AI talent.”

The full list of centres is: