another reminder that Britain needs sovereign tech but sadly our politicians are more interested in leadership manoeuvring than securing the country’s technological future

“One ally described his style as “Clintonesque”. … an unfortunate comparison! I always wonder about the intelligence of “friends & allies”. thetimes.com/article/e652aff…

The UK commentariat will spend this week deluded about the Anthropic situation. “It’s just Trump.” “It’s a one-off.” “We can build our own.” “We don’t want or need crappy American AI anyway.” None of it holds up. US has been using AI as a geopolitical lever since 2022. Chip controls, model weight restrictions, Chip Security Act embedding trackers directly into hardware, and now model restrictions. The direction of travel is clear. The UK has four AI Growth Zones, two without delivery partners, and OpenAI paused its Stargate UK data centre in April. Powering a data centre here costs four times what it does in the US. It is illegal to build LLMs that could compete with Claude because we cannot train models in the UK under our copyright laws. The idea we will build our own infrastructure under business as usual is unrealistic. We need to adopt. We need the productivity gains. Debt servicing costs are at historic highs, the tax burden is already at a 70-year peak, and the OBR’s long-run projections assume some productivity recovery. If professional services (the one sector generating real trade surplus) gets automated away by American AI while UK firms lag on adoption, the fiscal math becomes genuinely dire. Under current trajectories, we will arrive late, dependent on foreign infrastructure, with no domestic capability and no leverage. Nobody is taking this seriously enough and I’m feeling despondent.

“ they plotted how to pull off the largest IPO in history, which required investors to believe in a sci-fi strategy, overlook steep losses, stomach an unprecedented valuation and hand total control to a controversial & mercurial founder.” #governance ft.com/content/a7f4246d-9ae2…

A crucial crucial point. A lot goes into the funnel - not a lot comes out.

“In almost any plausible scenario there is, at minimum, a need to rethink the underlying social contract: what universities actually do in exchange for their privileged position and the vast flows of public and private money they receive” geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/r…

For the handful of sane people still on this platform, a piece about the past, present and future of universities, suggesting analogies with the position of monasteries 500 years ago. The piece looks at the threats (from AI, politics, student scepticism) and potential responses, from challenge-based working to lifelong learning, place-making to metacognition. The default in much writing about universities is a mix of complaint that they aren't loved or funded enough, and nostalgia. I doubt that's an adequate response to the current predicament. geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/r…

Congratulations to our President, Prof Sir Andrew Morris CBE FRSE PMedSci, awarded a knighthood in the King’s Birthday Honours 🎉 With a career focused on advancing research & improving lives, this honour recognises his services to medical sciences, public health & patient care.

Coughton Court - wonderful house and gardens

Water and energy are already in public control! And energy in particular is in an abject state because of it. Meanwhile, AI…

Yet another meaningless statement…