Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Is the UK a bad place for tech firms?

Is the UK a bad place for tech firms?

Microsoft is seething.
Despite months of lobbying and negotiation, the UK's competition regulator ruled yesterday that the tech firm should not complete its proposed multi-billion dollar purchase of the games maker Activision Blizzard. It would have cemented Microsoft's status as a video game uber-giant.

If the UK, US and EU don't all approve the deal, it is very unlikely to be able to go ahead.

Neither Microsoft nor Activision have pulled any punches in their responses, with the former branding the decision "bad for Britain" and the latter saying "the UK is clearly closed for business".

Are they right?

The CMA doesn't think so - it says protecting the interests of businesses in Britain is intrinsic to its ruling.

The government would also say absolutely not.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently spoke of "Unicorn Kingdom" - a unicorn is a firm worth more than $1bn without being listed on the stock exchange - and talked of an ad campaign targeting Silicon Valley investors.

I received a flurry of virtual raised eyebrows from various contacts about that - but fundamentally Sunak's vision of a prosperous UK has tech at the heart of it.

The body Tech Nation - which ironically lost its government funding in January after 10 years as a UK tech sector champion - valued UK tech firms at $1trillion, collectively, at the start of the year. Only the US and China have exceeded this milestone, it said.

Britain has a long history of being good at tech innovation. Radio, the telephone, the Enigma World War 2 code-breaking machine, Dolby surround sound, the World Wide Web - all UK-based inventions.

So where, then, is our Apple, our Google, our OpenAI?

I've been to the unkindly nicknamed Silicon Roundabout tech hub in east London, and the beautifully titled Silicon Glen in Scotland.

We have a handful of big successes - look at semiconductor firm Graphcore - and plenty of much smaller ones. But we are seriously lacking Silicon-Valley scale corporations which are also household names.

The UK had a considerable asset in the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, but it now belongs to the Japanese firm Softbank, and this year will no longer be listed on the London stock exchange.

Deepmind, the hugely successful AI firm, is still UK-based but now belongs to Google.

I've interviewed countless tech start-ups here in the UK over the years. And often, although never on the record, I'll hear a similar ambition: they hope to get bought up by a US tech giant waving a huge cheque.

Some of them manage it. Sometimes the giant in question only actually wants a small part of the firm's intellectual property and winds the rest of it down at the earliest opportunity. That is of course not unique to either tech or the UK.

Everyone has a price, as the saying goes. But also, scaling up is hard.

Numerous entrepreneurs have told me that growing a company is a fragile time, because even though it appears to be doing well - there's more scrutiny, regulation, tax rules, workers are stretched, there may not be the immediate cashflow to balance the extra work and facilities having to be bought in.

On top of that, Brexit brought about the introduction of a new layer of operational issues to be navigated by all businesses, and the long anticipated Online Safety Bill comes with strict new rules for tech firms in that space, and large penalties for non-compliance.

One investor told me that while Britain is a good place to start, it's a much harder place to scale up.

Of course to an extent the same is true worldwide. For every Meta, there are thousands, maybe even millions of failed start-ups which burned through their funding and couldn't make it work.

You do also have to remember there is simply a lot more money in the US and, rightly or wrongly, less red tape.

Lots of people I speak to genuinely believe the UK has a chance to really punch above its weight in the rapidly accelerating AI revolution.

The government has introduced fairly light regulation for AI so far - stricter than the US but less strict than Europe - in the hope of allowing businesses to thrive.

There are currently more than 3,000 AI companies in the UK with a combined revenue of $10bn in 2022, according to official figures.

One idea doing the rounds in the UK tech scene is creating a "Britbot" - a British answer to OpenAI's viral AI chatbot ChatGPT and Google's Bard.

A faintly comical name, maybe, but the idea behind it is absolutely serious: perhaps there is an opportunity here for the UK to position itself with those at the front the race?

Just don't expect Microsoft to race to invest in it.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
Wave of Complaints Against Apple Over iPhone 17 Pro’s Scratch Sensitivity
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Trump Says Ukraine Can Fully Restore Borders with NATO Backing
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
×