Down on Labour, bullish on Britain

Happy Monday and welcome back. My shower is fixed so don't be afraid to say hi if you're at the techUK conference today.

Happening Today 🗓️

In London: Reform's Zia Yusuf and tech secretary Liz Kendall are among the speakers at techUK's policy conference. (More below).

In California: Nvidia GTC starts with a keynote from the company's boss Jensen Huang. He's expected to unveil a new chip system for inference developed with Groq, The Information reports. AI minister Kanishka Narayan speaks virtually tomorrow about the UK's ambitions.

Closer to home: UK Tech Week kicks off in Manchester, The AI Standards Hub Global Summit starts in Glasgow, while Cambridge Festival has an event on AI and digital policy.

In Parliament: MPs on the Public Accounts Committee quiz Treasury and Business and Trade officials on how regulators are meant to be promoting growth. Liz Kendall gives a written statement on the government's media literacy action plan.

Copyright chat: Where does the UK go next on AI and Copyright? The Morning Intelligence is getting together an expert panel, sponsored by RELX, to go through this question on Thursday. Register here.

News In Brief 🩳

Search for the Holy Grail: Science minister Patrick Vallance will announce Britain's Nuclear Fusion Strategy today, pledging £2.5 billion of investment.

Views wanted: A new group on data centres has launched in Parliament with a call for evidence to shape its work. The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Data Centres, chaired by Labour MP Chris Curtis, will focus on investment, energy and planning.

That's big: Meta is planning to lay-off up to 20 percent of staff, as it tries to offset the cost of its AI spending, Reuters reports.

Down on Labour, bullish on Britain

Ministers have a massive job on their hands to convince businesses the government is on their side, a survey of 500 firms published this morning shows. But there are also reasons for hope.

Not feeling the Londonmaxxing: TechUK has published research timed for its policy conference revealing 84% of tech firms are unconvinced that economic growth really is a top government priority.

Wishlist: More than half say Britain's operating environment makes growing their business difficult, while almost half (45 percent) said they were looking to move investment outside the UK. Their top priorities for policy changes were slashing business taxes, cutting energy costs, expanding AI skills programs and simplifying regulation.

Big on Britain: Achieve that, and 80 percent believe their profits would increase and 65 percent say they'd increase hiring. The biggest cause of optimism was almost three-quarters believing British tech will outperform international competitors over the next decade.

Feeling the Londonmaxxing: London is also the most dominant European AI hub by every measure in a separate report out today. The State of AI in Europe has the capital soaring ahead of other European cities on the number and value of AI unicorns and startups, while Cambridge also ranks highly.

No paradox: Being down on the government but bullish about Britain's longer term prospects is not as paradoxical as it first sounds. The best case I've seen is from one of the country's most successful VCs, Saul Klein, in his mercifully concise note.

Something coming: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has a chance to seize the moment when she gives the Mais Lecture on Tuesday. She'll announce a development corporation for the Ox-Cam corridor, more AI initiatives and closer EU alignment, The Times reports.

Live and unplugged

Reform's head of policy Zia Yusuf will tell today's techUK conference that "we are entering the most pivotal technological moment in human history" and the country needs leadership to "act decisively to ensure Britain competes and wins". He'll argue that, despite its strengths, the UK is falling behind because of "political choices" (largely energy policy).

Border tech: Yusuf is also the party's home affairs spokesperson and he will say a Reform government would "deploy advanced systems... to secure our borders". That includes increased surveillance of British waters to ensure the state "once again has full control over who enters our country".

Master or mercy? Yusuf's remarks, shared with The Morning Intelligence, are also strong on "sovereignty". "The question is whether Britain will be master of its own destiny, or at the mercy of others," he will say.

On the agenda: The political appearances at today's event are framed as "in conversation with..." meaning there shouldn't be big announcements, but we'll listen out for any gems. Kate Forbes is repping the SNP, Ben Spencer the Conservatives and Victoria Collins the Lib Dems, while Liz Kendall will close the event.

Monday Movers 👩‍💻

Get in touch to share your career updates and job vacancies. 

Hiring spree: Britain has seen hiring for AI-related jobs grow at 37 percent year-on-year, faster than its European counterparts, but it is struggling to train and attract the workers needed to sustain that growth, according to LinkedIn data. The US attracts AI engineers at nearly twice the UK’s rate.

Spotted on LinkedIn: Google DeepMind is after a writer, Ofcom needs a tech policy manager, AISI is looking for a research engineer and ElevenLabs wants an AI safety policy person.

That's your lot, back tomorrow.

Tom