A synthetic intelligence startup that was employed to work with Dominic Cummings on the Vote Go away marketing campaign has been awarded a minimum of seven authorities contracts value virtually £1m within the house of 18 months.

College, which has hyperlinks to senior Tory figures in Downing Avenue and the Cupboard Workplace, is quickly increasing its attain into varied corners of Whitehall and final 12 months was tasked with discovering methods to use synthetic intelligence throughout authorities.

A Cupboard Workplace minister, Theodore Agnew, who’s liable for the federal government division that promotes using digital expertise inside public companies, is resisting calls to promote a £90,000 shareholding within the firm amid claims of a battle of curiosity.

On Friday it emerged that College’s chief government, Marc Warner, attended a gathering of the federal government’s scientific advisory group on emergencies (Sage).

College’s connections to the higher echelons of the federal government seem to run deep. The agency’s first high-profile contract was supplying data science services to the Vote Go away marketing campaign, which Cummings ran earlier than changing into Boris Johnson’s chief political adviser.

Cummings has for years maintained a weblog documenting amongst different issues his enthusiasm for the disruptive potential of latest applied sciences and synthetic intelligence.

College is run by Marc Warner, whose brother Ben Warner, a knowledge scientist, was reportedly recruited to Downing Avenue final 12 months by Cummings after running the data modelling for the Conservative occasion’s common election marketing campaign. Ben Warner is a former senior worker at College and can also be mentioned to have labored on Vote Go away.

Ben Warner hit the headlines when the Guardian revealed he and Cummings have been attending meetings of Sage, which offers recommendation to ministers on Covid-19. One Sage attendee informed the Guardian that Warner was a daily participant in conferences and “behaved as Cummings’ deputy”.

College is working on the coronary heart of the federal government’s response to the pandemic. It has been processing massive volumes of confidential UK affected person data in an “unprecedented” data-mining operation alongside Palantir, a US agency based by the libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel.

Marc Warner disclosed in an article in the Times that he too attended a crucial assembly of Sage in March earlier than the lockdown was imposed. He argued that he wanted to align Faculty’s work with that of the remainder of authorities, together with Sage. College mentioned he attended Sage as an observer.

College’s work on the coronavirus response is simply the most recent authorities undertaking it has secured below the Conservative administration. One early contract, for £32,000, funded fellowships in 2018 to put knowledge scientists in metropolis governments to assist resolve native challenges. College was at the moment working below its authentic title, Superior Abilities Initiative.

Final 12 months College was awarded a £250,000 contract from the Division for Digital, Tradition, Media and Sport to run a cross-government review on the adoption of synthetic intelligence, introduced on the identical day that the corporate rebranded as College Science.

Beneath the contract, College labored with two authorities departments – the Workplace for Synthetic Intelligence and Authorities Digital Service (GDS) – “to determine probably the most vital alternatives to introduce AI throughout authorities with the purpose of accelerating productiveness and bettering the standard of public companies”.

One in all College’s shareholders is Lord Agnew, a financier who has been a government minister since 2017. He has owned shares within the agency for the previous 4 years. They’re value round £90,000, in keeping with its most up-to-date filings.

In February this 12 months it was introduced that Agnew had change into a minister within the Cupboard Workplace and Treasury and had taken ministerial accountability for the GDS, which works with official our bodies to make use of digital expertise to enhance public companies.

A authorities spokesperson mentioned Agnew had had no position in awarding any contracts to College whereas he had been a minister. Nonetheless, Spotlight on Corruption, a watchdog group, has referred to as on Agnew to promote his shareholding in College, saying it raised questions over the federal government’s guidelines on managing conflicts of pursuits.

The federal government spokesperson replied that Agnew had adopted the suitable procedures by declaring his shareholding in House of Lords register of interests and below the ministerial code of conduct.

College mentioned that whereas the GDS authorised the general funds for expertise tasks, it was not concerned within the tendering or approval of particular contracts by particular person departments.

Final 12 months College additionally acquired two consultancy contracts value £185,000 from GDS. In March it additionally secured a £125,000 contract to offer recommendation on bias mitigation in finance and recruitment to the Centre for Knowledge Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), a government-funded board of experts who’ve been tasked by ministers with making suggestions concerning the ethical implementation of latest applied sciences.

One of many CDEI board members is Faculty’s chief commercial officer, Richard Sargeant. A College spokesperson mentioned Sargeant had recused himself from any discussions in regards to the CDEI contract. A authorities spokesperson mentioned College was the highest-scoring bidder below a aggressive tender.

College’s authorities work with Palantir on Covid-19 is predicated out of NHSX, the digital expertise arm of the well being service. This work was awarded to College in March below the federal government’s fast-track procedures to answer the pandemic, with out some other corporations being requested to bid for it.

As an alternative of an open tender course of, the Division of Well being determined to increase a contract that had already been awarded to College. The unique contract was awarded after a aggressive tender. College mentioned the extension of the contract constructed on its present work with NHSX to create a brand new synthetic intelligence laboratory.

As well as, College has been awarded a £264,000 contract from the Division for Enterprise, Vitality and Industrial Technique to observe the affect of the coronavirus on trade.

In February 2018 it was reported that Faculty had a £600,000 contract from the Dwelling Workplace to track terrorist videos online.

Holly Searle, College’s head of PR and communications, mentioned: “College has robust governance procedures in place to protect towards conflicts of curiosity when competing for brand spanking new work. All of its contracts with the federal government are received by the correct processes and consistent with procurement guidelines.”

The Scott Belief, the final word proprietor of the Guardian, is the only investor in GMG Ventures, which is a minority shareholder in College.