Lacking in energy
Whitehall gridlock stalls data centre boom.
Good morning and welcome back, I hope you're surviving the heat. I'm off to poke around a data centre in the Docklands, more on that tomorrow.
Happening Today 📆
Closing in on a ban: Senior doctors and Wes Streeting have both compared social media to smoking/tobacco as the government's social media and chatbot consultation closes today. Keir Starmer is expected to back a ban for under-16s, the Sun and Observer are both reporting. Meanwhile AI minister Kanishka Narayan is in Australia to look at how their ban is working. Ministers have until July 29 to respond. Tech secretary Liz Kendall said last week they would act by the end of the year.
Get on with it: A coalition of media and tech companies have written to ministers this morning demanding swifter enforcement of digital markets powers. Mozilla, DuckDuckGo, Epic Games, Proton, the IPPR and DMG Media are among those concerned that more than a year after the Competition and Markets Authority got new powers, remedies in mobile browsers, search and app stores haven't been implemented. They write:
"If existing market failures are not corrected now, they will be inherited by the AI era... The world is watching. The actions taken in the coming months must be ambitious and swift."
🚨 Paid subscribers have got exclusives on the Tony Blair Institute, the King's Speech, DSIT staff changes and the AI Adoption Conference in the last month. Join them with a free trial.
