Tag: UK
325 articles tagged UK
AI is not yet lifting productivity, Barclays tells clients
Barclays analysts find the evidence linking AI adoption to stronger productivity remains weak, fuelling fears the trillions being spent may not pay off.
London's Arrakis raises £22m to put AI on the factory floor
Arrakis, an industrial AI firm founded by an ex-Accel investor, has raised £22m ($30m) to deploy AI agents into aerospace, energy and manufacturing operations.
Banks ship untested code as AI outpaces their testing
Nearly two-thirds of financial firms knowingly release untested software as AI generates code faster than teams can validate it, a Tricentis report finds.
IQE lifts growth forecast on AI data centre demand
The UK-listed semiconductor wafer maker raised 2026 revenue growth guidance from 20% to above 30%, citing accelerating demand for Indium Phosphide.
London employers warn of a widening AI skills gap
BusinessLDN survey finds the share of employers saying their workforce has the skills they need fell from 63% to 50% in a year, as Khan accepts taskforce plan.
Burnham axes DSIT and puts an AI minister in cabinet
Kanishka Narayan becomes the first AI minister to attend cabinet as Andy Burnham abolishes DSIT and disperses its functions across Whitehall departments.
NHS App AI triage cut phone queues 29% in pilot
An AI triage tool in the NHS App reduced phone queue volumes by 29% at a Sussex practice, with national roll-out to all users due by April 2028.
UK firms adopt AI widely but shallowly, ONS finds
ONS data shows AI use in UK businesses tripled to 35% since 2023, but the average adopter still runs just 1.6 tools and only 10% use AI extensively.
AI-edited wildlife photos corrupt citizen science records
Scientists warn in Nature that AI-enhanced bird photographs are contaminating databases such as iNaturalist that researchers use to track species ranges.
Burnham moves to abolish DSIT as tech sector revolts
Andy Burnham has asked officials to draw up plans to abolish the science and technology department, drawing warnings from techUK and the Startup Coalition.
Staffordshire targets £2bn AI boost to county economy
Staffordshire County Council has set out plans for AI to add around £2bn to the county's economy by 2030 through SME support and skills programmes.
UK finance chiefs turn sharply more optimistic on AI
Deloitte's quarterly survey finds 73% of UK chief financial officers now expect AI to improve business performance, up from 39% two years ago.
Labour's AI tsar warns middle classes face biggest hit
Simon Johnson, chair of the government's AI Economics Institute, warns AI could push 10-20% of UK workers out of good jobs and sharpen inequality quickly.
UK researcher backdoors an open AI model for under £75
Manchester Metropolitan's Katie Paxton-Fear implanted a backdoor in an open-weight model in about an hour for under £75 ($100), using ten training examples.
London's Applied Computing raises £15m for energy AI
The London company behind Orbital, a foundation model for energy operators, raises £15 million (€17.4 million) led by KBR and opens a Houston office.
Government opens call for evidence on data rules for AI
Businesses have until 9 September to tell the government where UK data regulation helps or hinders AI, as ministers weigh guidance, changes or deeper reform.
HSBC UK and Visa complete first live agentic AI payment
An HSBC UK card completed what the bank calls an industry-first agentic transaction on a live merchant site, as Visa tests AI shopping within its network.
MHCLG names AI priority projects for English councils
The Ministry of Housing's Local AI team sets priority projects for councils after hearing from 60 authorities, including an AI playbook for local government.
AI scribe Heidi cuts NHS waiting times in West Midlands
Doctors say the NHS's largest AI transcription rollout saves six minutes a consultation and cut one clinic's letter backlog from six months to 14 days.
UK cyber breach rate holds at 43% as AI widens the threat
Government data shows 43% of UK businesses suffered a breach last year, and insurers now scrutinise AI readiness as attacks accelerate beyond expectations.
AI chatbots give false facts about 64% of UK retailers
Tests spanning 72,000 questions find ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity return false facts about most UK high street retailers, with smaller firms hit hardest.
Yorkshire Water scales AI monitoring across 4,000 assets
The utility adds 1,500 pumping assets to its Samotics programme after AI monitoring prevented 40 pollution events and delivered a 571% return on investment.
CPS apologises for AI hallucinations in court documents
The High Court has accepted two apologies from the Crown Prosecution Service after AI-generated citations to non-existent authorities appeared in extradition filings.
Ex-Palantir team raises £37m for sovereign British AI
Valarian, co-founded by a former Palantir executive, has raised £37m ($50m) to build sovereign British AI and data tools as UK unease over US tech grows.
Nscale's £2bn UK data centre stalled by grid delays
Nscale has been told the grid cannot power its £2bn Essex AI data centre in time, forcing it towards gas fuel cells as connection backlogs bite across Britain.
Reeves to launch City 'skills compact' for the AI era
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce a financial services skills compact committing City firms to retrain thousands of UK staff for AI, covering some 500,000 workers.
Ofqual warns of far tougher scrutiny on AI in coursework
Ofqual boss Ian Bauckham says written coursework will face 'far, far more scrutiny' to stop the AI-fuelled subversion of assessment in England.
National Grid stakes £1.4bn on US AI-power platform Joulent
National Grid is investing £1.4bn ($1.75bn) for a 35% stake in Joulent, a US platform building power for AI data centres, chasing surging electricity demand.
Thames Valley Police AI assistant Bobbi handles 200 calls a day
Thames Valley Police's AI assistant Bobbi handles around 200 non-emergency conversations daily, resolving nearly half without human help.
Tripadvisor AI summaries downplay serious complaints, Which? finds
A Which? investigation found Tripadvisor's AI review summaries softened serious complaints, praising hotels facing food-poisoning and harassment claims.
Wayve courts carmakers with £2.2bn and human-like AI driving
London's Wayve has raised £2.2bn ($2.8bn) for a self-learning driving system it wants to license to any carmaker, from Nissan to Stellantis robotaxis.
Bank of England floats 'kill switch' for agentic AI trading
Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden says existing frameworks were not built for autonomous AI agents and floats market-wide circuit breakers to contain the risk.
UK businesses waste £67bn a year on failed AI projects
Research from Emergn estimates large UK firms write off £67bn a year on transformation and AI work that fails, blaming weak governance rather than low spending.
Whitehall AI savings lie in the back office, not chatbots
Research suggests government AI savings come from back-office work, not automating citizen contact, with only 14% of people preferring AI to human interaction.
Lancashire council says AI is giving social workers time back
Lancashire County Council says using Microsoft Copilot to draft case notes could save 225,000 hours a year, freeing social workers for face-to-face care — a vendor-published account.
UK workplace AI use doubles, but the gains cluster at the top
Google-backed research says UK workplace AI adoption has reached 73%, yet the career rewards concentrate among a 15% 'trailblazer' minority, exposing a widening skills gap.
British American Tobacco to cut 5,500 jobs in AI overhaul
FTSE-100 group British American Tobacco is cutting 5,500 jobs and moving a further 3,500 roles to partners as its AI-focused Fit2Win programme accelerates.
Morrisons credits AI and data push for £940m in savings
Morrisons boss Rami Baitiéh says the supermarket's expanded use of data and AI has delivered £940m in savings over three years without hurting customer experience.
Six in ten UK shoppers would ditch AI agent after one slip
An ACI Worldwide survey finds 60% of UK consumers would abandon an AI shopping agent after a single mistake, with trust and accountability the key barriers.
King's Cross AI boom reopens Britain's 'sovereignty' debate
US export curbs on Anthropic's top models have reignited the debate over whether Britain can build sovereign AI, even as US giants pack into London's King's Cross.
Most UK firms use AI while calling it irrelevant — report
An HCR Law and CyNam study finds most businesses use AI daily despite 80% deeming it irrelevant, with only 11% of workers trained to use it safely.
UK shoppers embrace AI for prices but balk at payments
An ESW survey finds 48% of UK consumers welcome AI price comparison but only 26% are comfortable with AI-powered payments, with a sharp generational divide.
FCA rethinks regulation for the AI age, eyes agentic watchdog
FCA chief Nikhil Rathi says the regulator must shift from rule-making to stewardship as AI outpaces legislation, trialling agentic AI to monitor markets.
London claims 'legal AI crown' as senior hires cluster
London hosts 25% of top law firms' senior AI hires versus New York's 10%, new data shows, as the City bets English law makes it the legal-AI capital.
Luminance bets on in-house AI over 'rented intelligence'
UK legaltech Luminance, fresh from a £56.8m round, argues that building its own AI models beats renting frontier intelligence on margins and accuracy.
Young Scots say AI deepfakes are now 'part of daily life'
A Young Scot survey of 2,600 finds over 80% have seen online misinformation, with AI deepfakes fuelling distrust and calls for tougher regulation.
British Army AI cuts war-planning cycle from 72 hours to one
The Army's ASGARD system has compressed corps-level planning from 72 hours to one, its top general says, part of a £1bn battlefield AI push.
Met chief warns police risk being outwitted by AI crime
Sir Mark Rowley says criminals exploiting AI move faster than forces bound by slow procurement and calls for fewer, larger police forces.
UK backs Oxford and UCL labs to make AI cheaper to run
Two government-backed labs will share up to £60m to build open-source AI that runs on ordinary hardware, part of a £1.6bn UKRI strategy.
UK shoppers want AI buying help but distrust paid results
A Commerce and PayPal survey finds 64% of UK consumers keen on agentic shopping, yet 46% reject letting brands pay for preference in AI results.
AI law firm wins English court case in a legal first
Garfield AI prepared every document for a £7,000 county court claim won by a freelancer who paid about £400 — believed to be the first trial won using an AI lawyer.
Using AI for financial advice? Experts urge caution
With 28 million UK adults using AI for personal finance, experts warn the tools make confident but costly errors and carry no accountability to users.
DVLA's AI phone system halves call navigation time
The DVLA's AI-powered voice system has cut average call-navigation time from three minutes to 90 seconds, handling some of its 900,000 monthly calls.
Lloyds to hire 300 tech experts for AI push
Lloyds Banking Group is recruiting 300 tech specialists to build agentic AI by September, weeks before chief executive Charlie Nunn unveils a new strategy.
Half of London firms report an AI-era skills gap
A survey of 2,043 London business leaders finds just 50% believe their workforce has the skills needed for the AI era, down from 63% a year earlier.
NatWest to train all 60,000 staff in AI ethics
NatWest will put its entire 60,000-strong workforce through AI ethics training, built with Edinburgh University, as it embeds the technology across the bank.
Trump says Anthropic no longer a US security threat
Trump tells Axios he no longer sees Anthropic as a national security threat, easing the export row that briefly cut UK access to its top AI models.
Leeds makes its case to be Britain's second AI city
With deep financial-services and NHS data, Leeds is positioning to win AI's 'application economy' — but capital and senior-talent gaps still cap its ambitions.
UK research funders to allow AI in grant assessment
UKRI, Wellcome and six other major funders will update their joint policy to permit generative AI in processing grant bids, with final decisions kept human.
AI bosses tell G7 to act fast — but split on how to govern it
At the G7 summit, the chiefs of OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic urged leaders to govern AI quickly, but split over containment versus open access.
UK AI use hits 'tipping point' as firms scale up, Google says
AI adoption in Britain has reached a tipping point as companies move from pilots to production and start seeing returns, a Google Cloud executive says.
AI prototype aims to halve England's planning decision times
The government unveils two AI planning tools, including a prototype tested in Barnet, Camden and Dorset that could cut householder decisions from eight weeks to four.
Europe confronts its US AI dependence at G7 and VivaTech
Tech sovereignty dominated the G7 and VivaTech as Europe weighed its reliance on US cloud, chips and AI models, with viable home-grown alternatives still scarce.
Ex-KPMG audit head backs £10m round for AI audit firm
Audit AI startup Cortea has raised £10.3m (€12m) to expand into the UK, with Dawn Capital and KPMG's former global audit head among the backers.
Trump rejects UK plea for exemption from Anthropic AI ban
Washington has rebuffed Downing Street's request for a carve-out from the Anthropic export ban, even as a Monday meeting and an industry letter pile on pressure to lift it.
ICO sets out plan for safe AI innovation in the UK
The Information Commissioner's Office has published its approach to enabling AI innovation, promising an AI code of practice and agentic AI guidance.
Starmer seeks UK carve-out from US Anthropic AI ban
Downing Street is lobbying the White House to restore British access to Anthropic's top models after a US export order locked out all foreign nationals.
UK firms embrace AI but managers lack skills, CMI warns
A Chartered Management Institute study of 1,000 UK managers finds only 5% report transformational AI gains, with most firms stuck in the pilot phase.
MHRA publishes public views to shape AI healthcare rules
The MHRA has released two reports on public and clinician attitudes to AI in healthcare, feeding the National Commission's regulatory recommendations due this summer.
AMD, Dell and Cambridge open UK sovereign AI lab SAIL
AMD, Dell and the University of Cambridge are launching the Sovereign AI Innovation Lab, adding to a fast-growing Cambridge cluster of public AI compute.
Surrey AI spinout wins £1m Manchester Prize for biogas tech
BiofuelAi, a University of Surrey spinout, has won the government's £1m Manchester Prize for AI that optimises biogas plants, cutting emissions by 28% in trials.
Bank of England warns of AI deepfake scams using Bailey video
The Bank of England has warned the public over AI deepfake scams after fake footage showed Governor Andrew Bailey brawling with Reform UK's Nigel Farage.
Government backs £200m drive to get UK business using AI
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has launched a £200m-plus initiative to accelerate AI adoption across UK firms, expand Bridge AI and create a new AI Economics Institute.
AI legal assistants to be trialled in crown courts
Ministers will pilot AI legal assistants in crown courts to cut record backlogs, but the Law Society warns the technology must not replace funding and court staff.
Half of enterprise AI projects stall at the pilot stage
A Valliance survey of 1,000 European leaders finds nearly half of AI initiatives stay stuck as pilots, with UK firms spending £39.2m a year for limited returns.
UK regulators warn banks over frontier AI cyber threats
A joint FCA, Bank of England and Treasury statement warns frontier AI can automate cyber-attacks at scale, pushing banks to revisit testing and operational resilience.
London leads UK AI adoption as the regional gap widens
DSIT data shows London firms adopt AI at 20% versus a 16% UK average, raising fears the productivity gains will concentrate in a capital already pulling ahead.
Doctors could be sued for AI mistakes, NHS warned
The Medical Protection Society warns doctors risk becoming a 'liability sink' for errors made by clinical AI tools unless UK law is overhauled to share blame.
UK launches AI Growth Labs with legal services first in line
The government has unveiled AI Growth Labs, secure testing environments to fast-track AI products through UK regulation, starting with the £40bn legal sector.
AI firms take record London office space in 2026
AI companies signed for a record 565,000 sq ft of London office space in early 2026, with OpenAI, Anthropic and Synthesia driving demand, JLL data shows.
Aviva detects record £233m in fraud as AI scams rise
Aviva flagged a record £233m in suspect claims in 2025 as fraudsters used AI to fake accidents and documents, prompting the insurer to deploy AI in defence.
Labour unveils AI bootcamps to protect young workers
Liz Kendall has launched AI bootcamps, a £20m jobs alliance and tech training for 400,000 pupils, pledging to make AI 'work for workers' at London Tech Week.
505,000 NHS staff to get Microsoft Copilot to cut admin
NHS England will give 505,000 staff Microsoft 365 Copilot after a trial found it saved 43 minutes a day, with full rollout expected by October 2026.
UK firm PhysicsX hits £1.8bn valuation in funding round
London-based PhysicsX has reached a £1.8bn ($2.4bn) valuation on a Temasek-led round, scaling its AI engineering platform for aerospace, energy and chips.
UK confirms £1.1bn plan to back British AI chips and compute
Liz Kendall has unveiled a £1.1bn AI Hardware Plan: a £750m national supercomputer, advance chip purchases and a record British Business Bank fund to secure UK AI sovereignty.
UK orders Google to let publishers opt out of AI Overviews
The CMA has imposed a world-first conduct rule forcing Google to let UK publishers block their content from AI Overviews without losing search ranking.
Ex-GCHQ chief: AI could give drones a workable moral code
David Omand says AI can now build a moral framework for autonomous weapons, reversing his earlier doubts - as critics call the stance dangerous.
Most UK workers feel overwhelmed by the pace of AI
Henley Business School research finds 61% of UK workers feel overwhelmed by AI's pace, even as adoption spreads and shadow AI use grows.
Microsoft UK chief: AI can make public services more human
Ahead of London Tech Week, Microsoft UK's Darren Hardman argues AI is freeing public servants from admin, citing NHS, council and Whitehall examples.
Northumbrian Water uses AI to listen for hidden leaks
Northumbrian Water is trialling FIDO Tech's AI acoustic sensors to find buried leaks, saving nearly 6.4 megalitres of water a day in a six-month pilot.
West Midlands SMEs offered 50 funded AI feasibility reports
A new West Midlands Digital Accelerator offers 50 funded AI feasibility reports to regional SMEs, after a survey found budget the biggest adoption blocker.
Confused AI rollouts hurt UK firms and baffle their staff
Muddled AI adoption is wasting money and bewildering employees, experts warn, as firms chase the technology without agreeing why they are using it.
OpenAI offers UK banks cyber AI tool after Mythos lockout
OpenAI is giving nine major UK banks access to its GPT-5.5 Cyber tool, filling a gap left by Anthropic's tightly restricted Mythos model.
ICO sets out plan to government for safe AI innovation
The UK's data regulator has told ministers how it will give businesses regulatory certainty on AI, including an AI code of practice and agentic AI guidance.
Give workers more say over AI, UK thinktank urges
A TUC-backed IPPR report calls for a statutory duty to consult staff on AI adoption, warning the benefits will not be shared fairly without worker power.
Runway picks London for HQ with £150m UK investment
Nvidia-backed AI video firm Runway will make London its European headquarters and invest more than £150m ($200m) in the UK's AI ecosystem by 2028.
DfE guidance backs AI for drafting SEND support plans
Updated government-backed guidance says schools may use AI to draft SEND support plans, but warns staff to be 'extremely cautious' with pupil data and statutory documents.
NHS SBS and Salesforce launch AI finance support platform
NHS Shared Business Services and Salesforce have launched SBS One, an AI-powered finance and procurement help centre that NHS SBS says resolves most queries within 24 hours.
Derby Council AI tools still resolving half of calls three years on
Three years after replacing its switchboard with AI, Derby City Council reports flat resolution rates — and a wider £12 million AI savings claim worth scrutinising.
Microsoft frames £23bn UK investment as AI infrastructure bet
Microsoft UK CEO Darren Hardman positions £23 billion datacentre and skilling spend as the foundation of a British 'intelligence economy', ahead of London Tech Week.
UK AI regulation: King's Speech, Crime Act and ICO converge in May
Osborne Clarke's May regulatory roundup tracks the AI provisions of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 alongside new ICO cyber guidance and EU AI Act developments.
Pinsent Masons reprimanded by High Court over AI-generated false citations
Judge Mullen criticised the top-20 UK firm for citing a fabricated statute; Pinsent Masons has self-referred to the SRA. The third such public reprimand in months.
Charity Digital primer: EU AI Act's extra-territorial reach for UK charities
Charity Digital guidance flags the EU AI Act's deployer rules can affect UK charities operating in Europe, even though UK is outside the framework.
Police watchdog flags surge in AI-assisted complaints with invented laws
The IOPC says AI-drafted submissions are fuelling a 24% rise in complaint reviews, with some quoting legislation that does not exist in England and Wales.
Defra builds civil-service manual using agentic AI
Defra has launched a new digital service manual co-built with agentic AI agents, promising civil-service practitioners a single home for fragmented guidance.
UK police facial recognition is outpacing oversight rules
Live facial recognition is being deployed by UK police and retailers faster than regulators can keep up, with the Met scanning over 1.7 million faces this year.
Welsh founder urges 'minimum wage for robots' to slow AI job cuts
A Welsh tech entrepreneur has urged the UK government to consider a 'minimum wage for robots' to slow AI-driven job displacement and protect workers.
Edinburgh AI tool aims to unlock UK woodland carbon investment
New Gradient's Earth-observation system, backed by UK Space Agency, automates Woodland Carbon Code verification to bridge a £1.8bn private investment gap.
English councils to trial Google AI planning tool to halve approval times
Augmented Planning Decision Tool, built by Google on £8.3m contract, will recommend grant or refuse decisions; council officers retain final sign-off.
Lloyds launches Envoy internal AI agent platform on Google Cloud
Lloyds Banking Group rolls out an in-house platform letting employees build, share and reuse AI agents through an internal marketplace, with human oversight.
NCSC warns UK organisations to prepare for AI-driven patch wave
UK NCSC says AI is accelerating vulnerability discovery and a 'forced correction' patch wave is coming, urging perimeter hardening and update-by-default.
Rigby Group chief: UK AI strategy 'disjointed' as 1.6→6GW data centre target stalls
Rigby Group CEO Steve Rigby says UK AI sovereignty is constrained by power grid bottleneck, not capital, and policy must move beyond departmental silos.
UK biometrics watchdogs warn police AI oversight is years behind rollout
Met scans 1.7M faces in 2026 (+87%) as commissioners say facial recognition law is at least three years away and Police.AI rollout outpaces regulation.
Only 10% of UK small businesses give staff AI security training, survey finds
MoneySuperMarket survey of 250 UK SMBs reveals 44% worry AI exposes them to cyber threats but few invest in formal training; Scotland leads adoption.
Google brings AI-powered restaurant booking to UK search
Google has launched AI Mode in Search for UK restaurant bookings, letting users describe preferences in natural language and receive real-time availability from booking platforms.
Development Bank of Wales awards £60,000 AI skills contract
The Welsh government body has contracted a Cheshire SME to deliver a year-long AI adoption programme, including Microsoft Copilot training and AI Champions across teams.
UK to spend £15 million on AI-powered crime mapping for knife violence
The Home Office is funding AI-enhanced crime mapping across England and Wales, using hexagonal micro-geography to target knife crime hotspots with precision policing.
Telegraph: AI alarm bells should be ringing in Downing Street
The Telegraph's editorial board argues the OpenAI investment pause exposes fundamental flaws in Britain's energy costs, planning system, and industrial strategy.
OpenAI pauses Stargate UK data centre project over energy and regulation
OpenAI has put its multi-billion pound UK data centre project on hold, citing high energy costs and regulatory barriers that threaten the government's AI ambitions.
Teachers warn AI is eroding pupils' critical thinking in England
NEU survey of 9,000 teachers finds two-thirds have observed declining thinking skills among pupils using AI, as 49% oppose government AI tutor plans.
Welsh AI cancer trial delivers faster diagnosis in weeks, not months
North Wales health board reports that AI-powered pathology is triaging malignant biopsies within two weeks instead of three months, in what clinicians call 'mind-blowing' results.
HM Land Registry AI tool cuts land charges migration from months to weeks
A new AI system combining OCR and large language models processed a London borough's local land charges records in four weeks with a team of four, replacing months of manual work.
UK Regulator Bans AI Editing App Ad That Implied Clothing Removal
The ASA has banned a YouTube ad for PixVideo after complaints it implied users could digitally remove a woman's clothing, ruling it irresponsible and offensive.
Adecco signs unlimited Agentforce deal to power half its revenue with AI
The Adecco Group has signed a multi-year agreement with Salesforce for unlimited Agentforce 360 access, targeting over 50% of revenues powered by agentic AI by end of 2026.
Lincolnshire datacentre approved despite emissions equal to UK flights
North Lincolnshire council unanimously approved the Elsham Tech Park AI datacentre, projected to emit nearly as much CO2 as all UK domestic flights combined.
AI data centres could block new UK homes from electricity grid
UK government proposals to let AI data centres skip the electricity grid queue have drawn warnings from builders that housing developments will be frozen out.
CMA warns AI agents may push consumers toward worse deals
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority says agentic AI assistants risk manipulating consumer choices and prioritising their creators' commercial interests.
Google AI catches 25% of breast cancers missed by NHS screening
Research from Google, Imperial College London, and the NHS shows AI detected a quarter of interval cancers missed by radiologists and could cut workloads by 40%.
NHS AI breast cancer screening works but trust is the catch
A Sky News analysis of Google-NHS research shows AI matches radiologists at cancer detection and reads scans 170x faster, but doctors struggle to trust its findings.
UK authors launch 'Human Authored' logo to distinguish books from AI
The Society of Authors has introduced a certification logo for human-written books as AI-generated content floods the publishing market.
10,000 authors publish empty book in AI copyright protest
Writers including Kazuo Ishiguro and Richard Osman release 'Don't Steal This Book' at London book fair, demanding government protect creative copyright from AI firms.
Isembard raises £37m to scale AI-powered precision manufacturing
Hardware startup Isembard secures £37m Series A to expand its network of high-precision factories using its MasonOS AI operating system, targeting 25 sites by end of 2026.
Nscale raises £1.5bn as Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg join board
British AI data centre firm Nscale raises £1.5bn ($2bn) in new funding, appoints former Meta executives to its board, and sees valuation soar to £11bn ($14.6bn).
UK's multibillion AI drive built on 'phantom investments'
Guardian investigation finds major AI investment claims by Nscale and CoreWeave lack substance, with no contracts signed and a promised supercomputer site still a scaffolding yard.
UK sovereign AI fund launches with £500m for domestic computing
Government-backed fund formally launches in April to build domestic AI computing infrastructure, reduce reliance on foreign hyperscalers, and support UK tech sovereignty.
John Lewis launches on TikTok Shop and invests in AI product discovery
John Lewis joins TikTok Shop in 90-day trial and partners with AI platforms so products appear in ChatGPT and Gemini searches by year end.
UK AI firm Nscale raises £1.6 billion in Nvidia-backed funding round
British AI infrastructure company Nscale valued at £11.7 billion after $2 billion Series C round led by Norway's Aker and 8090 Industries.
Majority of Britons see AI as risk to public services, Ipsos poll finds
New Ipsos survey of nearly 6,000 adults reveals more Britons see risks than benefits from AI in public services, with concerns over job losses and reduced human contact.
AI Chatbots Giving Misleading Financial Advice, UK Research Warns
Popular AI chatbots including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot provide inaccurate tax advice and misleading money tips, Which? research reveals.
UK Public Services Leaders Call for Common AI Standards and Cross-Sector Collaboration
Digital leaders from local government and nonprofits emphasise need for shared frameworks, transparent governance, and citizen-centred design to realise AI's promise in public services.
Five-Minute Training Improves AI-Generated Face Detection by 20 Percentage Points
University of Reading research shows brief training on rendering errors boosts fake face identification from 31% to 51% accuracy for typical observers.
Reed Boss on AI Challenge in Hiring: 'People Like Dealing with People'
James Reed discusses AI's impact on recruitment, warning of job losses whilst developing AI agents for candidate matching, as UK vacancies fall for 39th consecutive quarter.
NHS Pilot Shows Microsoft Copilot Saves Staff 43 Minutes Daily
Microsoft 365 Copilot trial across 90 NHS organisations demonstrates AI could free clinical staff for patient care through automated administrative tasks.
Raspberry Pi Foundation Launches Code Club Initiative to Demystify AI for Children
Cambridge-based charity runs 2,000+ free code clubs across UK, teaching children coding and digital skills to understand AI-driven technology shaping their lives.
Upper Tribunal Upholds ICO Jurisdiction Over Clearview AI
UK tribunal confirms ICO's authority to regulate foreign companies monitoring UK residents, setting precedent for cross-border data protection enforcement.
UK Clinical Trial Approvals Halved Through AI and Digital Reforms
MHRA cuts clinical trial approval times from 91 to 41 days using AI tools and risk-proportionate oversight, with 99% reviewed within statutory timelines.
AI Tool Helps UK Government Recover £500m from Fraud
New AI fraud detection system developed by Cabinet Office recovers record £500m in single year, targeting Covid-19 fraud and unlawful claims.
Publishers warn Google’s AI search has triggered an ‘existential crisis’
Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode have cut referrals and upended publishers’ models, prompting legal action and sweeping strategy shifts across the news industry.