UK startups face EU lock-out

Good morning,

I'm back in Blighty and ready to ramp things up again from next week.

News In Brief 🩳

Block 'em: Ministers would be able to block companies from buying tech from suppliers deemed a national security risk under government amendments to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill published yesterday. The move is designed to stop companies with connections to hostile states selling into critical areas like energy, health and telecoms and comes after Iranian-linked hackers shut down a small power plant.

Deal: The UK and Ukraine have signed an AI defence partnership which will give Britain access to Ukraine’s massive battlefield database (named the Avengers AI Labs) for training AI models.

Copy that: Science minister Chris McDonald will have responsibility for intellectual property at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. His brief also includes access to finance, scale-ups and quantum.

Take it down: Social media firms should delete posts glorifying dangerous driving, a government minister said after seven people died in a crash in Middlesbrough on Saturday. A No.10 spokesperson said Ofcom had its "full backing to take tough action".

Not the nuclear option: Sovereign AI Unit chair James Wise has compared the public mood against data centres to the anti-nuclear movement of the 70s, warning that if successful it would cost the country "untold sums in higher costs for a vital technology".

Too soon: Britain's productivity is finally picking up after 18 years of stagnation, but it's too early to put that down to AI, the Resolution Foundation reckons.