Imperial College London sets up AI-assisted mathematics lab with £5 million grant

Imperial College London announced on October 27, 2026 that a £5 million grant from trading firm XTX Markets will establish the Langlands Lab, a new unit in its Department of Mathematics focused on AI-assisted mathematical research. The four-year grant is set to fund five PhD students, three postdoctoral researchers and the lab's academic leadership and management.

According to Imperial, the lab will begin operating in 2027, when its first doctoral students enroll. It aims to study how AI tools may change the way mathematicians carry out research, to advance work on the Langlands program, which looks for links between fields such as number theory and analysis, and to publish results whose proofs are checked in Lean, a software tool for verifying proofs. The grant also covers substantial AI computing resources, visits from researchers at other institutions and workshops. The lab plans to develop freely available interactive tools that let users work through complex proofs at their own pace.

The university said doctoral students will use AI-assisted methods in their research but will be expected to understand their work deeply and to explain and defend their results without AI before taking responsibility for them. The lab will also trial collaborative ways of producing research, including publishing results as a team, as the department considers how expectations for doctoral training and assessment may need to change.