The government is opening a branch of its new AI Safety Institute in Silicon Valley this summer, in an attempt to be closer to the companies developing the technology.

The plan builds on an existing partnership with the institute’s American equivalent signed this year and will be in addition to the London headquarters where 32 people are based, the technology department said.

Michelle Donelan, the technology secretary, billed the plan as a way to tap into the technology talent in the area and cement relationships with the United States “to advance AI safety for the public interest”. She said: “Opening our doors overseas and building on our alliance with the US is central to my plan to set new, international standards on AI safety, which we will discuss at the Seoul summit this week.”

The announcement comes as the UK institute publishes findings, revealing that all the models it had looked at were vulnerable to producing toxic content, known as “jailbreaks”, with reasonably simple prompts. Industry insiders said the AI labs being scrutinised were getting “frustrated” by the way the institute approaches them and the information they were asked for. They believe that opening a Silicon Valley unit could be a way to repair relationships.

It is led by Ian Hogarth, an investor and entrepreneur, and was created in October to look into the most advanced AI systems and ensure their responsible development and deployment. It identifies potential risks, such as whether AI can escape human control, has expert level control in biology and chemistry or could be used for cyberattacks.

The team includesGeoffrey Irving, formerly of OpenAI and Google DeepMind, Yarin Gal, associate professor of machine learning at Oxford, and Chris Summerfield, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Oxford and formerly of Google DeepMind.

Rather than label AI “safe” or “unsafe”, the institute presents analysis and research to the government so that it and the public have a greater understanding of the technology.

●Analysis from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and Faculty AI estimates that the government could save up to £200 billion over five years if it properly embraces AI. In their joint foreword to a report, Tony Blair and Marc Warner, chief executive of Faculty, said they saw “the potential prize for the UK, which should have its own ambitions to position itself at the forefront on AI and provide leadership on governing in this new era”. They added: “AI can help us reimagine the state. Many of the countless daily tasks in government are repeatable processes carried out on a mass scale. Almost all of these can be made better, faster and cheaper.”