Quandir for the UK government

In this report by the Exchange newsletter in the UK this week. Every Wednesday, Jan King brings you expert ideas about the most important business stories from the UK and key faces that form the news. The newsletter will also highlight other key developments in the UK that you do not want to miss, as well as preview the main events that the waves should make. How is what you see? You can subscribe Here.

Its climbing millions of pensioners. Winter fuel guide was not the only Turn This month, Rachel Rivz, the UK Chancellor, announced.

Less in political terms, but much greater importance for the long -term UK growth potential was the announcement on June 10, which the government will make $ 750 million ($ 1 billion) financing a new exoscal supercomputer, capable of conducting an operation on Quintilion (one billion).

The News Reversed A Previous Decision, Made Days After Administration in 2023. Edinburgh Had Already Spent An Estimated £ 30 Million on Supporting Infrastructure and The Discion Disc’s Scientific Community Warned that, at a time when China Has Two and Both Japan and France build their own, it will leave Britain that lags behind peers.

The timing of the reversal was no coincidence.

Just two days later to mark the beginning of the London Technology Week, Prime Minister Kire St. shared a platform with Jensen HuangThe founder and CEO of Nvidia, where both eagerly talked about the power of artificial intelligence to convert life.

During the session however

“The UK has one of the richest communities of the II where -on the planet. The deepest thinkers, the best universities in Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College, strange startups such as Deepmind, Wayve, Synthesia, an incredible research community,” he said.

“It’s just not enough. This is the largest AI ecosystem in the world without its own infrastructure.”

Cynics will say that Juan – Chip Producer calls for more investment in the infrastructure that requires chips – does not look like a broker that calls customers to buy stocks.

However, the government will not be aware of it in advance. And the recovery of the financing of the Edinburgh supercomputer suggests that the message landed from Starmer and Reeves.

However, in the UK the technology sector faces other problems. The first is that AI’s startups in the UK are far behind their American and Chinese peers in the amounts they bring up from the venture capitalists. This, potentially, is as much weakness, long -term perspective as a deficiency of sovereign infrastructure.

However, the broader concern is that the UK may lose the turnover in quantum calculations, the revolutionary method of processing information faster than classic calculations.

On the same day, on the same day, Starmer was on stage with Huang, quantum hardware startup Oxford Ionics, which retreated from Oxford University, Agree to absorb $ 1.1 billion Maryland ionq.

The sale revived the problems, first conditioned when Google was purchased by Google Start-Up Deepmind, that the UK is nothing but an incubator “where enterprises are born before scaleing elsewhere.

According to Tina Stowell, the former chairman of the House of Communication and the Digital Committee: “I am very sorry for its loss in the UK as British business, even if, under new property, he continues to work here.”

“What we saw this week is another example of an alarming trend,” she added.

There are concerns that other companies in space can follow the example.

“This (absorption) is a reflection of the highest quality quantum research work built for decades of state financing, but also an example that will closely monitor other quantum companies that seek capital and opportunities that can be difficult to find in the UK,” Ashley Mantanar, Co-founder and CEO Article for British equipment.

“More state financing is already available in the US than in the UK, more scholarships, more state and federal grants and contracts, as well as more support and deployment.”

“Even with the recent shutdown of the President (Donald) Trump to universities, private capital eventually follows state money, and several of our peers joined us in the opening of laboratories abroad to access such support, knowledge and capital,” he added.

Putting delays in the implementation of the UK national quantum strategy, announced two years ago, he noted that there would be no new government financing of quantum calculation projects until the fall – at the same time, the United States appeared in the process of doubling federal quantum financing and other countries, including Canada and Finland.

Montanar continued: “After talent, capital and impetus go to another place, they rarely return.”

Recently, the UK government has recently been open to supercomputers to help the AI ​​Revolution power. But AI is just one part of the UK technological ecosystem, and the anxiety should be that in areas such as quantum calculations, it is really dangerous.

Flip -b

Meanwhile, although Starmer and his ministers now seem to see the II as an illegal force in favor, others may disagree.

This week in a rare interview by Alison Kirkbi, BT Executive Director, Financial Times said in the company’s plans cut more than 40,000 jobs And to deprive the cost of £ 3 billion until the end of the decade “did not reflect all the potential of the II.”

She told the newspaper: “Depending on what we find out from the AI ​​… may be BT to be even smaller by the end of the decade.”

Most jobs that are supposed to go according to existing plans were engineers specifically hired to create a BT fiber network, the roles of which became unnecessary after the project is completed.

It is likely that in this case Kirki meant the BT Centers in which thousands of people work in places, including Plymouth, Grunok and Northern Timeside, as well as the functions of HR campaign.

The elder and his colleagues may need to convince the public- and the traditional supporters of their party in the unions, especially the II force for good, not just reduce costs.

– Jan King