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Intelligence Squared
Can Britain Become an AI Superpower? The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook (Part One)
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Katie Prescott
I'm Alex Honnl, professional rock climber and founder of the Honl Foundation.
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Greg Williams
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- [01:47]
Mia Sorrenti
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. On today's episode, a panel of experts tackle the question which could determine the success of Keir Starmer's government in the years to come. Can Britain become an AI superpower? For this special installment of the Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook editor of Wired, Greg Williams and Technology Business Editor at the Times, Katie Prescott, joined us live at Smith Square hall. A record 2.9 billion pounds was invested in British AI companies last year as Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to make the UK an AI superpower. But what will it take to realise this vision? Chaired by BBC News presenter Johnny diamond, our panel discussed fears over an AI bubble, the brain drain, energy costs and regulation, and how our government can ensure Britain lands on top. The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook series is made in partnership with Guinness Global Investors. For those who don't know, Guinness Global Investors is an independent British fund manager that helps both individuals and institutions harness the future drivers of growth to achieve their investment goals. Now let's join our host, Johnny diamond with more.
- [03:03]
Johnny Diamond
Thank you. Hello and welcome to this Intelligence Squared event. I am Johnny diamond and I'm delighted to be sitting down with two brilliant people to discuss this. This question Can Britain become an AI superpower? We have Greg Williams with us. He was until recently the Editor in chief of Wired UK and deputy Global Editorial Director of Wired. He now is taking up a new role in the tech sector that has yet to be clarified. It's the great mystery of the evening. Whilst in journalism, he won a clutch of awards. He was chair of the 2026 award, all well prized for journalism and has interviewed enough bigwigs to keep anyone satisfied for a very long time. Katie Prescott is technology and Business Editor at the Times and an award winning columnist for the newspaper's business section. She is a former colleague of mine at the BBC and much missed and used to present the business news on the Today program. She was tech commentator, Commentator of the year at the 2024 UK Tech Awards and she has her own podcast along with Danny Fortson of the Sunday Times reflecting on the technology worlds on both sides of the Atlantic. So those are our guests. They will, you'll be relieved to know, do most of the talking this evening. The question, I suppose at the top of my mind is why are we talking about a small damp island off the edge of continental Europe as an AI superpower? There's been a little bit discussion as to the ranking of Britain. It is described as the the third largest AI market globally. Some distance, it has to be said, beneath U.S. and China. Last year major U.S. tech firms pledged tens of billions of dollars of pounds worth rather of investment in the UK and Nvidia's Jensen Huang has predicted the country will become an AI superpower. The roots of it of course. Alan Turing, Geoff Hinton, Demis Hassabis, Mustafa Suleiman who guest edited the Today program over Christmas, a fascinating addition. We have world class research facilities, major and AI companies and a huge number of AI startups. We are here to discuss problems but also potential and solutions Here tonight, how Britain can build on the opportunity, what the government can do, what it is doing to make AI a pivotal part of the UK economy. I want to start with that phrase, AI superpower and see what both of you think it means.
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Katie Prescott
Katie, I'm so glad you raised the UK being third in the world for AI, because it's one of those phrases that gets trotted out time and time again in government press releases. And we were speaking about it before we came on stage and realized that none of us quite knew exactly why the UK got that third ranking. And I think it's to do with the value of the AI companies here. But I think it also says a lot about how we're on the cusp of being that superpower. And I kind of hate that word because it feels, you know, just like a sort of nonsensical phrase. But essentially you named a lot of people there who are AI godfathers, leaders in the field. We have exceptional talent in Britain when it comes to AI. We have extraordinary universities and amazing scientists. We have some brilliant, brilliant companies. And we're very, very good at starting businesses, less good at growing them. And we can talk about that a bit later. What we don't have here, and I think what is holding us back from being an AI superpower is much AI physical infrastructure. And by that I'm talking about data centers, semiconductors, really the hardware that AI is built on. So we have a lot of the ingredients to make this superpower cake, for want of a better word. But there are still some things that are holding us back.
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Johnny Diamond
Greg, do you want to address the idea of AI superpower?
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Greg Williams
Yeah, I know it's a really interesting idea, but I think also it kind of like suggests that, you know, that there's this kind of winners and losers around AI, which I think is a really interesting concept. Look, the AI revolution is happening. It's going to affect every single aspect of our lives. It's affecting already we're seeing sort of like productivity gains in all kinds of areas across every kind of industries, general purpose technology. So, you know, it's like electricity or whatever. It's going to impact everything. And I do think that, you know, I think Katie's absolutely right. We have unbelievable talent in this country. We have four of the 10 top universities in the entire world, many more if you dig into the top 30. We have enormous amounts of capital. It doesn't rival that the U.S. but we are very good, as Katie pointed out, sort of like that, sort of like that early stage investment. And I'm sure we can get into areas where we can kind of talk about scaling, but I think there are like two or three areas where we do have kind of like really strong advantages. One, we're just really, really good at innovation in this country. We are fantastically good at it. Per capita, we're probably better than the United States even. And our ROI on our businesses from venture capital is as good as what Silicon Valley produces. I also think that we have this kind of real sense of mission in the UK around the fact that we have a global outlook. I also think that, you know, we are able to dig into like vast treasure troves of data that simply isn't accessible to anyone else. We're talking about this sort of like the building of the National Data Library, which the government has announced as part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan. And, you know, we are uniquely placed in areas like healthcare to really drive innovation to think about. You know, we had the world, the world's largest depository of genomic information in the uk, Biobank, like half a million decoded pieces of DNA. So there are many advantages. And I think that, you know, the UK is good at many, many things. We're also very, very good at talking ourselves down. And I think that we need to sort of really seize the moment and think that we have strategic advantages, we have capital and we have like a brains trust. And we do have, I think, and this is something that we've had prime ministers and governments thinking about since Theresa May, really kind of like governments that are trying to drive policy in this country that does drive innovation and supports entrepreneurs.
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Katie Prescott
So perhaps there's a danger as well, because we're both tech journalists of thinking of this very much from that perspective, how you create AI. But I think also being an AI superpower is about how we use it across the board. And we've got incredible strengths in this country, for example, in financial services, in the law. You mentioned healthcare. So I think it's also about how we roll out this extraordinary technology and how we deploy it.
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Johnny Diamond
Okay, which leads us seamlessly onto the next question. I want to come to what the government's been doing and your views on that. But I guess it's a little bit of crystal ball. How would you see AI being used to its best effect in the next, say, 25 years in this country? What will have changed in this country vis a vis AI, its use and its development that would make you think, yes, we went down the right path. You're giving me that look as that's a stupid question. You'll never be able to answer it. Go on, give us a try.
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Katie Prescott
I don't think it's stupid at all, but there are already some uses in government that are moving the dials. So for example, the government's rolled out a tool called Humphrey based off to the yes, Minister Character which has reduced the number of people and the amount of time it takes to go through policy consultations. So when they ask the public, businesses what they think of a new policy and people come back with information, they used to have to pay individuals to sift through that and now they can use AI. I talked about healthcare there. I mean if you look at a discipline like radiology and the application of AI for scanning, it can be more reliable actually to use a computer to look through information that doesn't get tired or have a stop button than it can be a person. So I really think it's going to be transformational and is already starting to be.
- [11:27]
Johnny Diamond
You mentioned, Greg, that the sort of lack of. I think it was your case, the lack of hardware, the, the data centers, et cetera, again, spin forward 25 years. Can you be an AI superpower without that hardware on your territory?
- [11:42]
Greg Williams
Look, I think Katie and I are seasoned enough tech journalists to know that we do not look 25 years ahead, 25 look 25 days ahead at the moment. But what I would say to you is that Katie is absolutely right when she sort of like pointed out the. Right, the infrastructure challenge. So what the AI Opportunities Action Plan is like laid out is that we need to increase compute by 20x by 2030. And that is quite a punchy goal. We'll need to really think about how we provide the energy for that which, you know, we were talking earlier like that is such a huge issue, not just for the uk, but globally, but particularly for the uk. We need to bring in planning laws where we can build data centers with energy infrastructure next to them. At the moment, as far as I understand the AI action, I'm just going to call it the National AI Plan because I can't, I can't kind of keep repeating that same phrase. Is thinking about situating data centers next to sources of kind of like abundant energy. So in the north of England and there's one in Oxford next to a national fusion center, you know, building out that sort of like data capability. And also I think what's really important is that we have to be able to build trust around AI. And I think that there is still a bit of a gap there. All the sort of like latest sort of public opinion polls suggest that people are worried about jobs, they're worried about safety, they're worried about privacy. So we have to be able to point to like enormous UK success stories like the UK Biobank, where there have been no data breaches, half a million genomic samples and then no data Breaches. And then to Katie's point, looking at sort of like very clear success stories, Huddersfield Hospital now can do a radiology scan that can identify lung cancer far more accurately than human eye can in seven seconds. So those kinds of wins. People need to feel like they can trust AI and they need to experience it in ways that are positive for them.
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Johnny Diamond
Katie, again, without the hardware, can you be an AI superpower?
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Katie Prescott
It's a brilliant question. It's one of the things that Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, the world's most valuable company that makes the AI chips brought up last year. He said the UK is the only AI superpower that doesn't have infrastructure. I think it becomes a problem when you're talking about very sensitive information that you would probably want to store in the uk. So when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to defense, when you need. Because essentially what data centers store is data, right? And if you don't want to put that on foreign soil, than it is an issue. The UK has a problem. We are very small. Our energy infrastructure is already creaking. The rise of AI is coinciding with the rise of electrification of cars. And so the pressure on the national grid is absolutely massive. And the boss of the national grid keeps coming out and sort of squeaking about it, actually, because it's such a problem. I've come across all sorts of ideas that people have had for making data centers possible in the uk, including putting them in space and also building them around waste disposal centers. So you're using the energy of basically landfill sites to power data centers. I mean, that's how desperate people are at the moment. And also all this stuff takes a long time to build. So as you said, the government's put planning changes in place. But, you know, you can't just throw up a data center in a few months now.
- [15:17]
Greg Williams
You're absolutely right. I mean, it takes, I think, you know, talk to Greg Jackson at Octopus, and I think it takes around. He can build. He said to me once he can build a. An offshore wind, you know, whatever power plant, whatever you want to call it, offshore wind center in a year, but it takes seven to connect it to the grid. And that's the kind of like, you know, challenge that we have or opportunity that we have. But I just wanted to come back to sort of like that idea that we were just, you were discussing around that data. And I think that there's a real opportunity for the UK to think about sort of like sovereign AI, where we, you know, we are. We have Governance over this and we have regulation around it that you and I know that there's a big conversation and maybe Johnny, you want to get into it around sort of what regulation should look like in the uk but if the UK becomes a kind of like a trusted place where AI is built and there's maybe a UK AI kite mark, where there are standards, where there's global governance that, sorry, there's. There's this governance that's recognized globally. That's another opportunity for the UK because I think, you know, despite the fact that, you know, we are, we've maybe shot ourselves in the foot in terms of like our global reputation in 2016. There's still, I think, you know, an opportunity for the UK to sort of like demonstrate sort of like global leadership in this area by showing that we can, we can have governance that is trusted, but at the same time sort of like ensures that we are attracting companies here that want to innovate.
- [16:46]
Johnny Diamond
Okay, well, look, it was the Prime Minister's pledge to make Britain an AI superpower. Can you directly address how the people you talk to feel?
- [16:57]
Katie Prescott
The government is doing, Katie, Pretty negatively, actually. There was a lot of irritation around the budget in I would say the entrepreneurial community as a whole, but especially in tech, a sense that they didn't quite know the direction of travel. I think there's a sense that the focus from government has been on innovation within the public sector rather than promoting AI companies themselves and the AI startup ecosystem in the uk. And certainly there's been a bit of irritation around taxation. I mean again that probably sort of businesses across the board. But when, you know, news broke that Nick Staronsky, the boss of Revolut, was living in Dubai. Herman Nerula has moved out there. The CEO of Improbable. I particularly actually ahead of the budget, less so afterwards heard about a number of entrepreneurs who were thinking about moving on tax concerns. So. But that's all anecdotal.
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Johnny Diamond
Great.
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Greg Williams
Yeah, I think that, that, that's interesting because I think you can look at that also is that there have been sort of like global shifts. Right. So, you know, Asia now, Dubai sort of like is much more sort of like central to sort of like those growing markets. And you know, Revolut clearly is looking trying to get a banking license in the Gulf. It makes sense for Finnick to be there. Worth pointing out that he's just invested £3 billion in the UK and Revolut's headquarters is to still here in the UK. I would point to sort of look government's slow. I would look to the fact that maybe there have been some changes that hopefully will have an effect further down the line. So, for instance, the fact that the treasury is now working with the Mansion House Group to ensure that we invest from pension funds in the UK. So I think they're going to raise around 100 million from local government pensions and also from direct contribution pensions, other pieces of legislation that encourage investment into the UK R&D, also tax credits on R and D. So it's always slow. Government is, I think, you know, trying. The infrastructure thing is a real challenge. The energy thing is a real challenge. But if we can kind of keep, you know, building up on that sort of like that data infrastructure, then I think that we'll see a lot of companies that are able to build on that application layer.
- [19:20]
Katie Prescott
It's very easy, isn't it as well, to blame the government of the day? But I think there's also an element of sort of, it was ever thus in the British tech world. So I've just written a book about Mike lynch, the tech entrepreneur who founded his business in the 1990s. And a lot of the research I did just showed that so much of the things we complain about, the fact that British businesses get to a certain size and sell out to America, the fact that it is very, very hard to find funding at a certain point in a business's growth here in the UK haven't really changed. And so I don't think that's necessarily a sort of today's government issue.
- [19:54]
Greg Williams
And I was in. I was in Germany last week and they're having exactly the same conversation. They're like, why can't we build a global player? Why can't we. Why can't we build a fund that is a fund of funds? And you know, it's exactly the same conversation that's going in Germany. I would say that the German government has just invested 1 trillion euros. I think, or maybe it's dollars. Forgive me for not knowing the exact number. One trillion in de. Industrialized. Sorry, in re. Industrialization Germany, particularly around the defense sector. And I think we haven't really touched on this yet as the opportunity. But like, one of the great things that I think we can hopefully do is we can bring about more. And I know you want to touch on geopolitics, Johnny, but like, one thing that I think is really important is like we're putting in place, hopefully the government will put in place industrial policy that makes the UK more secure because we're living in incredibly uncertain and Difficult times.
- [20:48]
Johnny Diamond
Can I ask you both, and we're going to come to the poll in a moment, about your thoughts on what might be holding AI back. But before we get to that, briefly, to touch on the revolution that is happening in geopolitics. In particular, a question which I think very few people would have thought we would ask, perhaps up until a year ago, which is whether we can trust the United States and whether the US government is still to be classed indisputably as an ally. And what you think that means for, sorry, that sort of vast word, tech.
- [21:27]
Katie Prescott
And AI, Katie, I think it's absolutely terrifying. And as you say, a year ago, maybe more, we would never have considered the idea that the US government might put pressure on big tech companies to stop their services. And more, and more particularly from Europe, this is being considered in the corridors of power. People are really, really worried to the extent, actually that the president of Microsoft, who's a guy called Brad Smith, that is known as the ambassador of Silicon Valley, he's a bit of a sort of diplomatic chap, lawyer by trade, did a press conference with us last year and he gathered all the tech journalists together and he said, look, even if we are pressured by the White House, we will still continue our services. And that is absolutely unprecedented. Now, you look at what's happened with Greenland this week, and you look at the tariffs that Trump is threatening, actually, probably the biggest lever he's got to pull is over technology. So I think something like 80% of our cloud here in the UK is hosted by Microsoft and Amazon, and then 10% is hosted by Google, and that's all of your banks and hospitals and all that sort of stuff. That's absolutely vital, critical infrastructure. And, you know, with the special relationship, in the past, we would not have been so concerned, I think, about our dependence on US tech companies. But regardless of what Brad Smith says, people really are. And so, particularly in Europe at the moment, they're trying to push for digital sovereignty. France is the only country in Europe which has a frontier AI company. So essentially the equivalent of OpenAI. It's a business called Mistral. It is far, far smaller than OpenAI or anthropic in America. We don't have one here, by the way. And they're making hay, really, off this sort of sovereignty issue that the European Union is trying to find ways to decrease its reliance on big tech. And it's terrifying, but fascinating to watch.
- [23:36]
Greg Williams
Yeah, I think the Mistral example is a really good one, and that, you know, they are basically the French champion and the French government have kind of like effectively underwritten that company. And you know, maybe that's the kind of, you know, would be very, very contentious in the uk but maybe, maybe that's the kind of bold move we need to see. I mean, to answer your question, Johnny, I think it's pretty clear that yes, times are uncertain, but I think we know because JD Vance has told us last year at the Munich community, sorry, Munich Security Conference, exactly what the United States intentions are towards Europe. And that's effectively sort of like the United States has given up on multilateralism. That era is over. So I think that what we have to do is build partnerships with almost like a coalition of the willing. Outside of the US we are still dependent on them. You're absolutely right. But the terms of those agreements that we have with them I think have to be sort of like co locating data, ensuring that like R and D talent is UK local talent, ensuring that all of our infrastructure is critical, national infrastructure. And we have to sort of determine that when we have those companies in our ecosystem that that technology is being used to create create indigenous technology. Rather than simply be a taker, we need to be a maker. You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com win.
- [25:29]
Katie Prescott
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- [25:57]
Greg Williams
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- [26:27]
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- [26:58]
Greg Williams
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- [27:17]
Johnny Diamond
Okay, I want to hear from the audience now and it is the first poll of our evening. You can see the QR code up on the screens there. If you point your devices at that. The question is, what do you think is the biggest obstacle to the UK fulfilling its potential with AI? Your options are the brain drain, energy costs, regulation and red tape and the AI bubble, which we all will discuss. There may be of course headings there that you would have put on that we have not. I don't know if there is anything there. Again, that question whilst people are voting. The biggest obstacle to the UK fulfilling its potential with AI, is there something missing there? It's too late to put it on the list.
- [28:00]
Greg Williams
Can you run through them again?
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Johnny Diamond
Energy talent, brain drain, brain drain, energy regulation and the bubble itself. I mean, let's ignore for the fact that Donald Trump appears to be pivoting away to save the least from Europe.
- [28:14]
Greg Williams
What would you say is the least worrying? Casey?
- [28:18]
Katie Prescott
Brain drain.
- [28:19]
Greg Williams
Me too.
- [28:19]
Katie Prescott
I put a question mark over that.
- [28:21]
Johnny Diamond
You can't queer the voting. Everyone's still deciding. Right?
- [28:24]
Katie Prescott
I wasn't sure what the rules are.
- [28:25]
Johnny Diamond
We have some answers. We have some answers. Don't all run away from brain drain just because Katie and Greg have said it's fine. Right. You can see the answers ahead. I don't have our guests. Can there Regulation and red tape up top, energy costs, brain drain and the AI bubble. A little bit of bopping around with the numbers there that you can see. Let's start with regulation and red tape. It's Katie. It's a sort of. It's double edged, isn't it? Because if you're talking about sovereign AI, then that is about the regulations that you want to lay down on creating what Greg was talking about. Sort of a safe space, a space that people trust Maybe a standard that can be adopted globally, but at the same time, you have sort of titans of the industry saying, get out of our way, get out of our way. Can you take regulation red tape away from.
- [29:13]
Katie Prescott
They would say that, wouldn't they? I mean, I think when it comes to tech in general, we are really crap at regulation and we tend to be running to catch up after the event, as we've seen with social media. I think with AI, actually, Britain's doing a really cool job. We're sort of in the, you know, Goldilocks, just right territory. If you think the US is basically doing nothing and Europe has got quite strict regulation on AI, we've decided to outsource it to our regulators. So, for example, Ofcom is responsible for regulating AI for the media and the Financial Conduct Authority, same for financial services. The idea being that the regulators know their space. And if you're talking about financial services or maybe health, you want to be a bit more restrictive than in other areas. But it is a really fast developing area. And I think where it's most difficult is, as mentioned in America, obviously that's where the biggest AI companies are. And often here in the uk, we're trying to regulate their behavior and for example, the Competition and Markets Authority is trying to do that in competition and sometimes struggling. Ofcom, we've seen quite publicly having to deal with everything with Grok over the last couple of weeks has been difficult. They've got an investigation going on, but, you know, as my colleague in Silicon Valley said, that's classic you Brits. You know, you just publish a white paper and then a green paper or whatever. So it's complicated, but I think. But I think we're in quite a good place here actually.
- [30:51]
Johnny Diamond
Right. Greg, can I ask you just. I mean, Katie mentions, and it's been discussed in other quarters as well, the lack of regulation in the us. This is of a technology that we are told may well surpass our own intelligence, may well be able to replicate, may well be able to remove itself from our control. Does. Does it concern you at all that the people who are leading the charge have the least in the way of guardrails?
- [31:20]
Greg Williams
I had a meeting with someone last year, weirdly, exactly a year ago in Davos, who was from a foundation, sorry, a research group into AI. And he sat and wept and he said, I'm so scared, I'm so worried. Meanwhile, on the other hand, you have. He literally wept in a hotel lobby. On the other hand, you have people who are saying, there is no risk. This is all fine. And I think what Katie is saying is absolutely right. The UK has actually done a really good job on regulating what the EU is doing is they're just regulating the technology. They're not looking at use cases. And what we're doing is we're looking at the application of the technology and that is exactly the right approach. Now we have to think that there are bad actors in the world. We already can see there are bad actors. Information sphere has been completely polluted by bad actors. And, you know, so many metrics demonstrate that we are being polarized, we're being turned against each other. And I think that, you know, we can all talk about sort of, you know, robots running amok and all these kinds of scenarios, but I think we are actually seeing it in real time right now on our social media platforms. And I think that while, you know, we need to think very carefully about the way that we regulate AI in the coming years and, and certainly I think 100% agree that kind of, with Katie around, the kind of the whole sandboxing in the uk which allows us, I think, an advantage, because if we can say that this is trusted AI, allows us to sell it all over the world with a kite mark on it, but I would also suggest that we need to be. We are so late to saving our information sphere. That's actually the thing I'm more worried about.
- [33:02]
Katie Prescott
We were so worried about the safe side of it, and you talked about robots running amok, that Britain hosted the first AI safety summit in Bletchley park in 2023, just a year after ChatGPT was launched and then the word safety was quietly taken out of the next event. But I think what's actually worrying me more than that kind of thing, and maybe the superpowers of AI is actually what it's done to perhaps more boring things, but really important things like copyright. If you look at the eradication and the destruction of the media industry because of the theft of information by AI companies and our lack of ability to regulate that, it's crazy. So we had a legal case here between Stability AI, which has an engine that creates pictures and Getty images, and Getty essentially lost that. The New York Times is suing Microsoft and OpenAI in the US over the theft of their copyright. And maybe something will then come out of that court case when it does come to court in a few years time, but at the moment it seems to me we haven't resolved that and it's a massive, massive issue.
- [34:20]
Greg Williams
I agree. And I think that the pressure is being put on creators to, quote, opt out. And I think that that is something that, you know, it's almost impossible to opt out right, of the, of these things.
- [34:32]
Katie Prescott
We had the UK's AI minister at the time, at the Times Tech Summit in 2024, I think, and she said on stage, yeah, this will be sorted out by the end of the year. And, you know, we're 2026 and it still is nowhere near being resolved. I mean, the last thing I heard about it was that basically everyone in the room who was looking at it just was shouting at one another.
- [34:54]
Greg Williams
And also like this, you know, we talk about sort of like UK growth, right, and the creative industries are our superpower. There's no, you know, great. We're great, we're great at financial services, we're great at so many things. We are great at exporting culture. And if those people have their, you know, economic incentives removed and, you know, they have their copyright infringed constantly and effectively, they have their content stolen. And I'm sure that, you know, you two are both journalists, pretty much everything you've ever written has been scraped by a bot.
- [35:26]
Johnny Diamond
Is there such a thing? This comes down to regulation, red tape as sovereign AI. I mean, do you have sovereignty over how AI is used within a territory or because of the nature of the beast and its global reach and its lack of individual sovereignty, is it impossible?
- [35:47]
Katie Prescott
It's such a good point. I think it's really hard with tech, isn't it, and services to put those sort of guardrails in place. But yes, I think if you are America, you can have sovereignty over your tech. And I noticed actually during the state visit, a lot of the big investments from the US tech companies were made through a brand new UK business called N Scale. You notice that the data center business, which I wondered if it was to try and create that sort of air of sovereignty, but I think it's very difficult if a company is headquartered somewhere and then its services used somewhere else to create purely, totally sovereign AI.
- [36:25]
Mia Sorrenti
Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was created in partnership with Guinness Global Investors. It was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Robert. For more information on Guinness, just head to guinnessgi.com or see the link in the episode description. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.