London’s push for AI sovereignty

The United Kingdom is intensifying efforts to establish "AI sovereignty" to reduce its reliance on dominant American tech giants like Google, Meta, and OpenAI. This movement stems from the "original sin" of DeepMind’s 2014 sale to Google, which many believe cost London its best chance at a homegrown trillion-dollar tech leader. Global tech correspondent Tim Bradshaw highlights that recent US government actions—such as briefly cutting off foreign access to Anthropic’s advanced models—have heightened fears that foreign economies could be "hollowed out" if their AI infrastructure is suddenly revoked. While the UK government has launched a sovereign AI fund and new startups like Eleven Labs and Wave are emerging in London’s King's Cross cluster, significant hurdles remain. These include the difficulty of competing with American salaries to retain talent and the reality that most "British" startups are still primarily funded by US capital and incorporated in Delaware.