Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called a UK general election for 4 July, raising the prospect that for the first time in 14 years it will be a Labour government shaping the business environment for the UK’s tech startup ecosystem. The date for the 2024 UK general election was confirmed by a rain-soaked Sunak outside ... Read more ›
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The UK government will offer up to £8.5m worth of research grants for projects tackling risks associated with AI. Tech Secretary Michelle Donelan said the AI research grants would be awarded to projects studying areas including deepfakes, cyberattacks and increasing productivity with AI. The programme will be led by the government’s AI Safety Institute (AISI), ... Read more ›
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The UK’s privacy watchdog is in contact with Microsoft over concerns with the firm’s newly announced feature that constantly takes screenshots on users’ devices. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will enquire with Microsoft regarding the Recall feature, part of the tech giant’s new AI product line, first reported by BBC News. Recall is part of ... Read more ›
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Nory, an AI-powered operating system for hospitality businesses, has raised $16m (£12.6m) in a Series A funding round. The Dublin and London-based company has built a platform to centralise the key operational data of hospitality businesses. The Nory platform analyses user data, providing insights for improving efficiency, acting as what the company describes as an ... Read more ›
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Vitesse, an integrated treasury and payment service provider for the insurance industry, has raised $93m (£73.1m) in a Series C funding round. Founded in 2014, Vitesse’s platform is used to manage payouts to insurance claimants. The company said its tech can replace the manual claims process to expedite payments. The London-headquartered company operates in the ... Read more ›
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London-based life science firm LabGenius has raised £35m in Series B funding for its machine learning-powered drug discovery platform. Founded in 2012, LabGenius has been developing its EVA drug discovery platform for several years. The company said the EVA platform uses machine learning – a subset of AI – to design, conduct and learn from ... Read more ›
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Over a dozen global tech companies, including OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft and Google DeepMind, have committed to setting out AI safety frameworks to mitigate or prevent harm from the technology. The companies have agreed that under extreme circumstances wherein these risks cannot be adequately mitigated, they will “not develop or deploy a model or system at ... Read more ›
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Anne Glover, co-founder and CEO of Amadeus Capital Partners, discusses the ways that the tech investment scene has changed since her firm launched in the late 1990s, how tech started as a niche sector but has since started to encompass everything, why AI hype is valid but there’s more to it than just generative AI ... Read more ›
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Self-driving cars could be on UK roads in just two years following the Automated Vehicles Act receiving Royal Assent today in what could be a significant boost for the country’s autonomous vehicle startups. The act, announced during last year’s King’s Speech, provides a legal framework for self-driving vehicles to be deployed on UK roads, with ... Read more ›
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Despite the challenges that rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty have imposed on M&A activity in the last year, the technology sector and IT services in particular are demonstrating resilience and still attracting investors and buyers in the UK. As Moore Kingston Smith Corporate Finance, leading corporate finance advisers in the IT sector, explains in ... Read more ›
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The UK is launching a new independent semiconductor group to connect industry, academia and the government. The UK Semiconductor Institute will act as a “single point of contact” for the sector at a time when nations are ramping up support for chips, the components underpinning many of the world’s electronics. The new institute will focus ... Read more ›
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Universities have been urged to reduce the stake they take in spinouts to encourage more software startups to be born out of academic research. TenU, which represents major universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and Edinburgh, has recommended tech transfer offices (TTOs) take between 5% and 10% equity stakes in software spinouts. The group argued that ... Read more ›
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The UK’s body for AI safety is expanding overseas with an office in San Francisco set to open in the summer. Announced on Monday, the expansion of the AI Safety Institute – founded by Tech Secretary Michelle Donelan and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last year – will position the British organisation close to US AI ... Read more ›
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While tech leaders scramble to create business models to capture the power of AI, politicians and regulators have been scrambling to write the rulebook. I’m sad to report that many of the rulebook writers appear to have taken their collective foot off the gas. The first AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park last November made ... Read more ›
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This week’s UK tech funding deals include AI customer support company PolyAI, remote and freelance worker management platform Native Teams, sustainable fintech Ekko and more. UKTN tracked £99.8m worth of UK tech investment this week (13 May to 17 May), a 95% week-on-week decrease across 12 funding rounds. Here’s your weekly roundup of UK tech ... Read more ›
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Sainsbury’s has agreed a partnership deal with Microsoft to incorporate generative AI into the supermarket chain’s operations. The five-year deal will see the British retail giant incorporate Microsoft generative AI to “improve customers’ search experience” for online shopping and AI customer support, Sainsbury’s said it will also use Microsoft AI to improve the efficiency of ... Read more ›
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A £4.6m fund has been launched by the UK’s innovation agency to back sustainable aquaculture ventures from academia and industry. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) – part of the government agency UK Research and Innovation – investment fund will support 10 projects addressing challenges to British aquaculture. The projects include using AI-powered ... Read more ›
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Damien Gillman is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at Luscid, a startup that has developed a software platform for brands to find and track sponsorship opportunities. Gillman founded Luscid in 2022 with Harry Coe, son of Olympic champion distance runner and now World Athletics chief Lord Sebastian Coe. The pair launched Luscid with the ... Read more ›
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A climate-focused fintech startup that plants trees and supports conservation projects when customers use its debit card has raised $2.5m (£2m) in funding. Ekko, which was founded in 2019, said it plans to use the funding to hire “leading industry experts” who can support product development and international expansion. Investment firm Fuel Ventures led the ... Read more ›
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Multinational businesses including Siemens and Thales have called on the prime minister to protect graduate visas to prevent damage to UK research and innovation. In a letter from the National Centre for Universities and Businesses, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was warned that “financial pressures” from cutting off international graduates from coming to Britain could “undermine ... Read more ›
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Most popular sources
Tech Wire Asia
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28% 22 |
Business Insider
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21% 3 |
CNET
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8% 5 |
Eurogamer.net
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5% 0 |
Gizmodo
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4% 3 |
| View sources » | |
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28.11.2024 09:43
Last update: 09:36 EDT.
News rating updated: 16:30.
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