The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science, has appointed four new directors tasked with addressing prominent societal issues.

The organisation said that today’s announcement represents a key milestone in implementing its new strategy and work which is centred around the three grand challenges of sustainability, health, and national security.

Professor Marc Deisenroth, who’s the Google DeepMind chair of AI and machine learning at UCL and part of the UNESCO chair on AI, will lead the environment and sustainability grand challenge. The challenge aims to find solutions to decarbonisation and environmental systems.

Professor Aldo Faisal, meanwhile, will head up the grand challenge in health, aiming to improve the country’s health and wellbeing. Faisal is a professor of AI and neuroscience at Imperial College London, and the founding director of the UKRI centre in AI for healthcare and the UKRI centre in AI for digital healthcare.

Professor Tim Watson, who’s the director of the Cyber Security Centre at Loughborough University and the previous programme director of defence and security at the institute, will lead the defence and national security grand challenge. It aims to ensure that AI and data science plays a role in safeguarding the UK and allies from security threats.

Dr Andrew Duncan will also join the institute to lead its fundamental research. He joins from Imperial College London, having been senior lecturer in the department of mathematics. He was also lead scientist in the defence division at UK technology company Improbable.

The directors are set to announce their priorities for their respective challenges later this year. The aim of these priorities, or “missions,” is to help society benefit from the continued use—and improvement of—AI and data science, while also minimising risks.

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Speaking on the announcement, Dr Jean Innes, who’s the chief executive of The Alan Turing Institute, said: “This is an important year for our AI ecosystem, as we come together to ensure powerful new technologies help us find solutions to society’s greatest challenges and I warmly welcome these exciting new appointments to our scientific and organisational leadership.

“Combined with our existing capabilities and challenge-led approach to science and innovation, this marks an exciting new chapter for the Turing as we play our part working with colleagues in academia, civil society, industry and government.”

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, also commented: “I congratulate The Alan Turing Institute on the appointment of these four new directors to its senior scientific leadership team.

“We are living through a time of tremendous progress in the field of artificial intelligence, and will need their energy and insight to make sure its promises are shared by all. Turing himself once put it best, ‘We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.’”