The main reason the US has been and is growing at twice the rate of the EU and the UK is its leadership in the digital revolution. The US has produced all the dominant western companies in software, mobile phones and pads, search, on line shopping, cloud storage, social media and complex chip production. The EU and UK just have to use these US services, and allow the US corporations to set up this side of the Atlantic to serve the customers.
Out of the EU the UK now has a bit less onerous regulatory regime than the EU for innovatory digital business, and has a growing cluster of smaller digital success stories which we need to build on. So I was dismayed to read recently that some in the UK government see the wish for large corporations to invest in many more large data centres in the UK as bad news. They apparently are arguing that these centres would require too much electricity and water which they do not want to supply so we should say No.
This is the ultimate madness. Far from saving the planet it just means we would need to link to overseas centres where the extra energy and water would still be used. If the government was serious about renewable power being able to answer all our problems they would get on and provide it by commissioning far more they have to date. If they were more realistic and worried about costs and reliability they will get on and put in some additional new efficient gas fired power stations alongside replacement nuclear for our soon to close stations and more wind and sun powered plant. Controlling migration properly would also help, reducing the number of extra people that will need power as well the extra business demand.
We are short of water which is also silly in a country with plenty of rainfall. New reservoirs are urgently needed for existing growing demand let alone for the new data centres. Just get on with it.
More data centre investment can drive more growth in energy and water supply. That is the way you grow a modern economy. Why stay limping along in the EU slow lane when we can join the new data super highway to prosperity?
February 25, 2026
Good morning.
Why create anything when all that will happen is that the government will tax it all from you.
I Dubai the level of Corporation Tax is 8% as opposed to our 19-25%. If you have transferable skills, why work here ?
What is being created here is a welfare dependent society. A society that, will be further managed via your carbon credit score. The EU and the UK do not want a modern functioning society. They want control.
February 25, 2026
Many ‘smaller digital success stories’ get bought out by a larger American company.
Otherwise, the creators move the business abroad anyway. This also applies to other types of business and has been a pattern over many years.
At least other European countries are more protective of their industries and don’t allow foreign buyouts. We prefer Selling England by The Pound.
February 25, 2026
Seems so but the welfare society is a doom loop that cannot survive, as ever more rich and hard working leave, the tax take declines and ever more claimants arrive often people working in the black market and in crime while claiming benefits too and that often criminal too!
February 25, 2026
7% of energy bills announces the energy regulator or just move to the USA and get 70% of them! Far more and better paid jobs there too and rather lower taxes..
Lots of ‘The government is opening lots of community NHS diagnostic centres” adverts is there some election coming? Is it legal to use tax payers money for such slightly disguised political adverts?
But London especially the transport system is littered with adverts for “The Mayor of London…” all done at public expense or transport users expense.
Not the actions of decent, nice and intelligent leaders! How are the action against the rape gang and those who turned a blind eye to it going?
February 25, 2026
Why? We have lousy politicians nowadays. Corruption (financial, moral, intellectual) amongst our elites and the complicit blob is endemic. The system will not produce better outcomes for ordinary people.
On our side of the Atlantic, the environmemtalist dogmas are entrenched so deindustrialisation is accelerating. In the US, corporatism has a stranglehold. They may lead in AI, but it doesn’t help most people. Like us, their growth rate of real medium income has dropped sharply over the past 25 years (it’s about a quarter of what it was).
Their system isn’t serving the needs of the majority well, and nor is our system. Tweaking AI rules here won’t change things for us. The malaise is so much deeper.
February 25, 2026
I’m not sure Data Centres are a good idea. Apart from the power and water they need, it’s likely they could soin be obsolete. As things progress they tend to miniaturies making large factory scale buildings unnecessary.
If they are built they would probably have their own SMEs for power, supplied from overseas because our government won’t give the go ahead for our own SMRs. Once again destroying manufacturing at the altar of Net Stupid.
We now appear to be giving Gibraltar to the Spanish as 2TK seeks to divert us if any overseas territories before being evicted from Westminster. Please, please let us be rid of these scoundrels.
Reply We would not be communicating on this website without data centres.
February 25, 2026
space needed for a given compute and storage capacity in data centres is shrinking massively over time. but the demand is also going up. as is the requirement for resilience which requires duplication. as is the demand for low latency which requires capacity closer to the end users. as is the demand for security and regulatory compliance, which often means trusted geography and jurisdictions.
February 25, 2026
Ian Wragg
I have worked on a few data centres in Slough. Very profitable. Minimum staff given the size of both the building and investment which, is scaleable.
February 25, 2026
Perhaps they should pump all the waste heat into the homes of all the people who thanks to Miliband and May might freeze to death this winter. As for water used for cooling it is not used up and can be endlessly reused and it does not need to drinking water either – we have no shortage it has been raining for two months.
February 25, 2026
So how do your reverse the flight of capital from the city and encourage the institutional investors to do as you request?
What practical steps are there?
There are some routes for the individual to directly support innovation such as VCT/EIS but it’s really the large players that will make the difference.
February 25, 2026
It’s clearly in Britain’s interests to support the digital AI revolution; the datacentres are a necessary evil but must be built here
The datacentres in particular will require vast amounts of juice; in America, where they have the same issues, Trump has refused authorisation for onshore solar/wind datacentre projects – he has demanded new coal and CCGT plant, alleging without evidence that they are more reliable, if much more expensive
The problem of datacentre cooling would seem to be impossible to solve; datacentres need vast amounts of clean cooling water. Unfortunately, there are almost no sources of clean river water here, everything is contaminated with sewage and the costs of cleaning it up mean that datacentre operators will build their plant in France or elsewhere in the EU. Or, if Musk has his way, they will be located in low-earth orbit.
We already have the dearest electricity in Europe thanks to our reliance on LNG gas-fired CCGT plant – building more will just make the situation worse. The recent successful AR7 renewables auction included a number of cheap onshore solar and wind projects, which will include battery storage facilities. The datacentres could be built close to these.
February 25, 2026
The electricity prices is nothing to do with LNG which is relatively cheap and plentiful. It’s about government distortion to make wind and solar look competitive. Why do you think Milibrain is offering £110 per mwh for offshore wind if its cheaper than gas at ,£77 per mwh
February 25, 2026
A lost of data centres I have worked on rely on pumping water from out of the ground.
February 25, 2026
SG: “We already have the dearest electricity in Europe thanks to our reliance on LNG gas-fired CCGT plant – building more will just make the situation worse.”
Nonsense. As yourself quoted a couple of days ago the price of wholesale electricity is £72/MWhr. This price includes around £30/MWhr carbon tax which is ridiculous as renewables have grid priority and gas is used as the last source as it needs to be dispatchable for supply to match demand and avoid rolling blackouts or even grid collapse. So the price of gas is actually £72-£30 = £42/MWhr. This compares with AR7 2024 prices of £65/MWhr for solar, £72/MWhr for small onshore wind, £91/MWhr for fixed offshore wind and £216/MWhr for floating offshore wind which the CEO of GB Energy says we will need as we are running out of shallow water. DESNZ Has calculated the price of newly built gas for 2030 to be £68/MWhr excluding the carbon tax and don’t forget that whilst gas is dispatchable renewables require additional costs of grid upgrades, grid stability and, until DESNZ can ensure that the wind always blows and the sun always shines, particularly solar at night, either additional backup costs or for the country to accept 3rd world intermittency.
February 25, 2026
PS:
The current low price of renewables is because they’re produced in China (even the concrete is now shipped from China) using coal power and even slave labour. Their ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) is so low they are unsustainable. We can’t re-make these renewables from their energy output. According to The Royal Society’s Large-Scale Electrical Storage Report the price of renewable electricity doubles when using hydrogen as a store of energy even when doubling the capacity factors and electrolyser efficiency over today’s values. And the latest idea to bury CO2 underground is definitely not sustainable.
February 25, 2026
We have the dearest electricity because on the mad net zero agenda, the mad May and Miliband, the vast costs subsidies, back up needed and refusal to drill, frack or mine. Or to invest in quality nuclear power stations indeed put obstacles in the way at every stage. USA rates can often be 30% or less of ours.
You surely do not really think the Natural Gas is the cause of high prices do you? Kathryn Porter (@KathrynPorter26) / Posts / X
Kathryn Porter (@KathrynPorter26) – And the Eigen Value chap are good introductions to reality in this area.
February 25, 2026
”dearest electricity in Europe” and water, I’ve just got my water bill ….up 14%
February 25, 2026
Datacentres need large amounts of reliable power 24/7 SG
They won’t get that with intermittent renewables.
February 26, 2026
Oh people will not mind intermittent computer uptime, surely?
February 25, 2026
Have you not heard of companies like ARM and ASML?
Reply Yes, Have you not seen the relative size of 7 UIS giants compared to the UK/EU companies?
February 28, 2026
What is your point?
ARM is not a UK company in terms of investment or control, it is Japanese and it’s shares are on NASDAQ and even at inception was 50% owned by Apple. Further it does not manufacture, this happens in the far east, but gets royalties from IP which is wholely dependent on law abiding governments to uphold their rights – good luck with that.
ASML is dependent on technologies from multiple countries including the US which actively constrains where it can sell products.
Both are under intense competitive pressure with China set on breaking their monopoly positions. ARM in particular is vulnerable to the rise in RISC-V.
Where is the UK or EU critical mass of start-ups, SMEs and mature companies driving digital technologies and commerce?
February 25, 2026
ah my specialist subject…
intellectual property protection is far stronger in the USA, this is a massive problem here
UK innovation does succeed but the founders always sell before it gets massive here, we should look at why
use of cheap imported tax subsidised ( foreign Ed) workers, encouraged by state treaties and social engineering, is far bigger proportion of the IT workforce in UK and Europe. this limits quality, innovation, and IP protection.
UK is still building new buildings with copper telco connections, everything should be optical fibre by default now.
many of our telco exchanges are full, and there is no place to expand them physically.
data protection regime and the whole ICO organisation are incompetent here.
FCA regime and organisation are incompetent here.
UK business is infested with class based prejudice, in the US it is a million times more meritocratic.
nobody will study computer science here because they can see all the jobs are being given to Indian imports.
so its not all power and water…
Reply Where are they putting in copper? Where I live we have fibre optic from BT’s competitors.
February 25, 2026
plenty of new builds, both residential and commercial, being installed with copper cables in the ground to them and no optical fibre, I walk past them every day.
which considering most of the cost of laying optical fibre is in digging up the ground a sensible approach would be every single time new cable is laid they should be putting optical fibre in.
we still have over capacity of optical fibre back haul between telco exchanges, which is accidental as its still a result of over investment during the dot com bubble. but between exchanges and end users we still rely on copper way too much. and many of the exchanges are physically full, limiting room for options.
in many places we have the BT half way house of optical fibre from exchange out to one box per neighbourhood, where it converts to copper for the last mile to end users. this is poor because those boxes look rubbish, take space, and are vulnerable to getting damaged in road accident or vandalism etc. this is a pretty crap solution which should never have been allowed.
many places in the country where optical fibre is officially available to end users, if another 10% of people started taking them up on that offer they simply dont have the space in the exchanges or under the ground currently. so its only a valid option if small numbers take them up. and then in many cases they would have to dig the ground up and lay new cable anyways. I know my house officially has optical fibre available, but I also know they would have to dig the ground up for a few streets to actually deliver it, including my very expensively laid driveway.
etc
February 25, 2026
Didn’t Starmer recently do a deal with China, so that they can have anything they want !
February 28, 2026
“use of cheap imported tax subsidised ( foreign Ed) workers, encouraged by state treaties and social engineering, is far bigger proportion of the IT workforce in UK and Europe. this limits quality, innovation, and IP protection.”
It also facilitates IP left, but this will become a moot point because all the R&D will shift offshore anyway because the boneheads in power believe only legal and financial services matter.
February 28, 2026
IP theft, yes on a grand scale, that’s why I said IP protection.
We have already seen leading techniques and technologies which allowed us to produce the very best in the world, in eg optical fibre production, leak to India and China. Destroying our competitive position. Which together with crazy emissions regime which mandates the most expensive (by many factors) anti pollution kit as soon as it is invented in a university, and the most expensive power on the planet. Those leading techniques allowed us to produce optical fibre that was in the top 1% quality in the world (where quality is measurable as amount of light getting through), and could be sold at premium prices, and not have to compete at the commodity average quality part of the spectrum. IP leaking and crazy regulatory environment here has led to our optical fibre production plants shutting, and the workforces here that innovated those best techniques being cast onto the dole. It is sheer madness what our ruling elite do to this country.
February 25, 2026
Not so sure about data centres, are they really the money makers. Data centres are usually dumped in places where land, energy and water are cheap. It costs next to nothing to carry the money making data in and out. So lay a load of concrete, install rows of servers, hire a few technicians and turn out the lights. I am not at all sure the dim wits who run government can make a net profit out of this.
While at it, the noble Lords might consider why data centres need so much water. The small numbers of technicians don’t wash their hands and use the loo that much. No, what happens is that water is a cheap way to dump heat from all that electricity poured into the data centre. Costed as industrial water use such a use is perfectly legal.
The real reason the USA is ahead of the UK and Europe is finance post WW2. Ably assisted by Parliaments here and in France and Germany. You might ask why they didn’t ride the computer and semiconductor booms. The real reason is size and serious money, we don’t have either. Way back a great Parliamentary committee decided that three computers would satisfy the UK’s needs so not much investment needed. Never made a right decision since.
Data centres are the start of the 4th wave of technology change, the parking of the wasteful energy consuming component of high tech on former industrial nations.
February 25, 2026
Why not place the data centres by the coast and run the cooling pipes into the sea, like they do with nuclear power stations?
February 25, 2026
Good idea but in reality the big brown envelope will dictate location
February 25, 2026
The issue of water you mention is for cooling. These things have a large battery of chilled water units. The data centres, although large, do not have all the equipment installed from day one. They start with a minimal amount and, as I said above, ‘Scale Up’ as and when required. Most I have worked on are virtually empty buildings to start with.
February 25, 2026
Good morning Lord Redwood
“The UK needs to back digital investment”, I read that differently probably, hopefully to how you intended it to be read. The inference being is that Government should get involved and interfere. The opposite is what is needed, no Government involvement. The right track for Government is to ensure a path is cleared and framework in place to permit the best of the best to reach it potential.
Government, Parliament even half believing only they have the knowledge and the wherewithal to ‘achieve’ is proven time and time again to be false, creating a false hope in very lame minds.
Half the problems the UK suffers wouldn’t be there if Parliament and Government hadn’t tried to put their own personal spin and direction on things to achieve a ‘look-at-me’ moment.
February 25, 2026
correct layers and layers of state manipulation, often pulling in different directions, costs a lot, is counter productive, and makes the country inefficient. the state should concentrate on protecting the borders, defence, and a minimal safety net for those in need. you could more than half the size of the state and only good would happen.
February 25, 2026
Take Parliaments desire for NetZero, its evolved into a personal ‘ego trip’. The infinite ‘free’ energy. Homes that are warm & cosy with no energy requirement. Transport free of petro-carbons. Parliament thought that only they could achieve though diktats, laws and banning. How dim-witted are they? You cant flick a switch and say we have decreed so it is done. That’s just personal ego and self esteem drunk on power.
The NetZero dream needs vast amount of money as yet an undreamed of amount of money. Parliament has demonstrated it has no concept of where money comes from how it is earned. To achieve this personal NetZero dream the first action was the knee-jerk dimwitted ‘I am the power, the lord’ action of cancelling all the UK’s known means to finance tomorrow. They killed their offspring, got deluded by power, for what? A cost burden increasing by the day, and the constant funding of other Nations for their own tomorrow. Every action by Parliament and its Government was to import, therefore post the UK’s main resource ‘money’ to foreign climes for it never to return. Parliament and its Government at every-turn because they know best precluded the opportunity for Great British ingenuity and ward work to participate.
Parliament, Government needs to get off its personal ego trip come back down to earth and recognise they are not the ‘doers’, they are the drain on society
February 25, 2026
Did some one mention the ego of parliament ….
‘Restoring or rebuilding the UK Houses of Parliament could cost nearly £40 billion’ google
February 25, 2026
“This is the ultimate madness.”
No, it’s communism, levelling everyone down to loin cloths, clubs and spears – except for the Party leaders and officials who will have luxury apartments in exclusive immigrant free enclosed suburbs, private jets, designer suits and glasses courtesy of their financial friends, armoured luxury cars and body guards.
February 25, 2026
@Peter Gardner +1 the Politburo, how did we get to this?
February 25, 2026
What we really need is a way for voters to get rid of Starmer’s Gang without waiting for the Gang to deign to submit to voters in 2029 or, if they can manage to delay a general election as I am sure they are planning, some time later.
February 25, 2026
That’s disinformation of the worst kind from HMG and water companies.
We suffer from mismanagement of our water industry just as we suffer the same with our road network and our energy supply.
Incompetence is just too vague a description – HMG has been in violation of the basic requirement to keep us safe as regards food, energy, water and streets free of violence – and they have failed miserably!
Water companies are very keen, as are HMG to impose water meters – they provide a sweet fairy tale about why, but they deliberately do not mention that water meters are a requirement of net-0 – a part of the control mechanism. HMG and water companies want smart meters, in addition to net-0 requirements to use less resources, so that they can cut off our supply at a whim, to educate us against over-use, or when we’ve been politically incorrect.
All of this expensive nonsense should be halted and HMG/Utilities made to do their day job.
February 25, 2026
These USA Companies mentioned rely on UK ingenuity and education. The main block of those now running AI which is correctly called Large Language Models, is Google & Microsoft their AI was spawned from consuming the UK Company ‘Deep Mind’, who’s founders are now the CEO’s and those that run these 2 large dominant AI outfits. And running them out of London. The London connection is becoming a problem as each day passes as the UK Parliament, its Government and its MPs are fighting the very exitance and future of innovation and enterprise in the UK
The UK Parliament even with a wealth of evidence to the contrary haven’t yet understood, they cant do things, real things, that need a hands on approach. They can’t even manage themselves, they are too busy fighting the people and democracy. The NHS their big dream 75years on is stall an abject failure.
Parliament needs to back of the EU rules based mindset, reinvent Britishness of exposing everyone to the opportunity to be and achieve the best they can. But that wont mean a thing to the UK Parliament its members are to busy fighting political egotistical battles that have nothing to do with anything other than their personal ego. Its the Surfs, the People that are taking the brunt of their ineptitude
February 25, 2026
We are way behind the curve.
The biggest problem is that the latest genetically British genius did NOT come home to Britain but went to our successor nation, the USA for all the reasons that you cite. This is the first time Britain has not benefitted directly from the genius of our own people.
He launches Starships the size of tower blocks and will build the new data centres in space powered by the sun. That will make earthbound data centres obsolete on cost ground.
We can’t catch up. We have to hitch our wagon to Musk’s Starship.
The second point is that we don’t need more houses or reservoirs, we need REMIGRATION.
The MOD must be held responsible for the crimes committed by the 19,000 Afghans they have brought to the U.K. I do not believe for one second that 19,000 Afghans ‘helped’ British troops in Afghanistan. The ‘data leak’ of their names was also very fortuitous for those engineering the annihilation of the British nation.
It is OBVIOUS that British troops must NEVER be deployed abroad again. It has cost more British lives (ruined, traumatised as well as k1lled) than Afghani lives.
Anyway the MUST ALL GO BACK.
February 25, 2026
According to commonslibrary.parliament.uk 09/12/2024 ‘Afghanistan statistics: UK deaths, casualties, mission costs and refugees’ 457 British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. There were 616 very serious casualties, 7,807 field hospital
admissions and 7,477 medical air evacuations.
Afghan deaths estimates are between 66,650 (Wikipedia), 176,000 (costs of war project, Brown University) and 241,000 (aljazeera).
The USA lost 2,459 military personnel, 1,822 civilian contractors, 18 CIA operatives, killed, and had 20,769 casualties.
statista.com ‘Number of fatalities among Western coalition soldiers involved in the execution of Operation Enduring Freedom from 2001 to 2021’.
February 25, 2026
There is a discussion to be had before we get to this more AI is a good thing and we must engage with it.
The discussion we should be having is what is the function of this ever increasing AI/data availability? What is to be used for that will bring advantage to people living their lives and bringing up their families?
Some might suggest AI will bring forth improvement in decision making. If that happens fine but ultimately better decision making is only an advantage if the decision is going to be beneficial.
I would argue we know enough about what is wrong and what is bad to be making decisions today to improve peoples lives. Sadly we do not enact the decisions needed to bring forth improvement. Just as we need more reservoirs for obvious reasons during warm spells, they do not get built because some activist group protecting the lesser spotted fritillary, or their fellow activists in the great crested newt protection society decide no place for reservoirs around here or indeed anywhere as far as they are concerned.
That brings me back to the question. What is the benefit of AI if we don’t intend to implement its findings?
Why bother? Should we be sorting out other more pressing social issues first?
February 25, 2026
Today we read a privately run freight yard has shut down. Some will blame just Reeves, but the bigger picture it is Parliament, its their Government they chose it, no one else, they hold her and the team she works with to account.
Business rates were increased in a Parliament approved budget from £22m to £65m. So the company walked away. Now the Taxpayer is finding £15m to keep the yard in a holding pattern.
Stupidity, deliberate, privatisation by the back door?
As with elsewhere no money for the Country or the State is gained, money lost and the means to recover loss is actually lost as well. The UK Parliament knows they cant run things that achieve and they have yet to learn that repeating the same mistakes produces the same results
February 25, 2026
Also today we get to see the latest unemployment figures. Since this Parliament started, the parliament of the ‘working class’ increased unemployment for the working class by 27%. That is despite the rise in the State sector which now stands at 6.18million.
February 25, 2026
Ed Miliband has been blasted for boasting the energy price cap will fall by £117 as analysis reveals the cap is actually £73 higher than when Labour came to power.
February 25, 2026
An election, the party set to displace Labour
“Illegal migrants would be granted an amnesty under plans drawn up by the Green Party.
Internal documents seen by the Daily Mail state that “immigration is not a criminal offence under any circumstances”.
“Migrants would be allowed to stay in Britain even if they had made failed asylum claims and immigration “detention would be abolished if Zack Polanksi’s party wins the next election.”
February 25, 2026
Polling shows they are in with a shout in Gorton and Denton.
The stupidity of the electorate knows no bounds, or is it the enemies of the UK living among us are so numerous?
February 25, 2026
Digital investment must be led by industry and the markets …..and not the taxpayer nor government (EVs etc)
Reply Of course. I am talking about govt needing to grant the permits and organise enough power, not paying for a data centre!
February 25, 2026
The gov must get involved the way the US government played a role in the development of Silicon Valley (indirect forms of investment), the Israeli government with development of Tel Aviv as world high-tech hub (setting up hedge funds for entrepreneurs and others in high tech industry to benefit from) and Irish government with development of Ireland as tech centre (mainly through education and skills training). The UK government should learn from these case studies (and from other countries) whilst also offering some creative and unique too – tailor-made to what is unique about our economy and country in general.
February 28, 2026
@Reply – a significant chunk of foundational data technologies came out of the US government funded DARPA programmes.
The purist notion that government must not subsidise technologies and start-ups in the face of what our competitors have always done is foolhardy and suicidal.
February 25, 2026
lets not forget the “drag” of being in the UK. worker in USA who needs a doc appointment or blood test can go see a doc pretty much when they want, have blood taken there and then. equivalent in UK will need to take at least half a day off work to see doc, and at least another half a day off work for bloodtest. and that is the simplest example. so much so that some of the big tech companies have their own private GP’s in their bigger offices, so they are paying twice for healthcare for their employees.
the Compaq/HP/DXC offices at junc 11 of the M4 were forever turned down for planning permission for another entrance to their car park, and other nonsense from the state. so its houses there now.
and so on and so on.
February 25, 2026
To be brief:
Folk should not be worried by the present excitement over AI. Similar claims were made over 40 years ago. Time has shown that we can develop a “super-fast Parrot”, but not one that really can think for itself. The present AI systems can mine open source data on the web, but they do not understand the meaning of the data. The “super-fast Parrot” was called an IKBS (Intelligent Knowledge Based System) back in the 80s – all it can do is regurgitate what it has been taught, little else.
February 25, 2026
AI is certainly in a bubble in the same way that we had a dot com bubble in the early 2000’s, lots of the share prices of AI companies will crash at some point. There is certainly lots of hype, and things that were just tech/IT being relabelled AI just because it sounds better to clueless shareholders and journalists. But there are some nuggets of good stuff which will rise through this, by good old customers voting with their feet, and that will help the human race if free enterprise is left alone by over controlling states. But it is correct to say the over hype, and over promising what can be delivered is a bit extreme. And some of the AI uses are doomed to failure as they clearly always will need a human to take a view.
Reply The rise of the big 6 US tec company shares has been based on their large increases in profit and cash generation. The shares are not over extended in the way the bubble shares were in 2000. Those companies were not generating big cash and profits and their valuations were based on hope and excessive expectations. Of course any of the big 6 could stumble if they go ex growth or hit tougher competition or commit excess investment.
February 26, 2026
the big US tech companies are not making money from AI, their earnings come from far more sedate older tech, mostly in a wrapper where the get significant advertising revenue. plus the good old fashioned software licensing. dont believe the hype. most profit in one of the big tech companies comes from printer ink, you wont find that reality in their published accounts.
February 25, 2026
@Atlas – the mystic hype about LLM. Nothing artificial, nothing intelligent. A nice presentation of known facts, but only if they have been published and made available for free!
February 25, 2026
They are developing self-aware A1 and the race is on.
Grok has to win because it’s the only one not grounded in lies. It therefore produces ‘fair’ responses and it’s easy to test. Just pose a question to each of the available AIs.
Grok will produce house designs, and building plans, so don’t bother to do architecture, it will replace our horrific medical profession and deliver the best medical care for next to no cost. Of course it specifies its own systems and programmes itself. So unless you are one of the 12 top computer geniuses, best to look to a different profession.
Films will be produced so the ‘glamour’ of Hollywood and the celebrity culture will be gone.
These are the good outcomes.
There are stories of self drive cars saving people who suffer a medical emergency etc. personally I loath not being in control, and I am a very good driver but I acknowledge that not everyone on the road is, so I accept that overall safety might be improved. Don’t bother learning The Knowledge therefore.
There is of course much more. I did not think it would succeed, I still think all AIs but Grok will end up k1lling us. But if Musk has confidence in Grok that’s good enough for me.
February 25, 2026
The big tech companies know more and more about individuals and now get access to government records.
If there was a will, Chinese-style social credits would not be far off.
Epstein was also about getting a jump on new technology developments. Big corporate interest – Palantir etc .
So cause for concern in my opinion.
February 25, 2026
The Danish government issued a press release this week:
“Europe must be able to stand on its own two feet when it comes to energy supply and security…The government will therefore initiate a process to prepare for a possible extension of one or more licenses with a view to contributing to Europe’s energy supply, security and independence until 2050.”
I guess our UK Parliament and its Government will be first inline to send UK money to Denmark, its clear from Parliaments thinking the ultra punished UK taxpayer doesn’t need the money they earn so its better it leaves the country never to return.
February 25, 2026
GREAT article
February 25, 2026
I’m quietly confident we COULD be coming to a golden age of tech, the economy, politics and culture but it takes imagination, hope (and courage, wisdom and faith) to believe this. The alternative is not to have these qualities and we just continue to sink as a country/culture/civilisation into the world of Mad Max and dystopia. Our CHOICE.
February 25, 2026
(And I believe the best chance we have of such a golden future is through the Tory Party – and yes I admit it’s in a mess at the moment but so was Germany after WW2 as was IBM in the 1980s that went on to be a highly successful corp)
February 25, 2026
“Why stay limping along in the EU slow lane when we can join the new data super highway to prosperity?”
Because socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor. Hence wasteful spending to justify high taxation, Net Zero to sabotage our energy and cause de-industrialisation and consequently national insecurity and the importation of the 3rd world.
February 25, 2026
A lot of irony coming to mind about just the backing of ‘Digital’.
Mobile phones etc mentioned the strategically important to the UK, yet the company ARM, was in effect sent packing by the UK Parliament. Their volume of sales as of today is 300 billion chips (roughly 900 chips per second), around the World from $136billion of sales and found in 99% of all the worlds mobile phones.
Demis Hassabis, Mustafa Suleyman, Shane Legg cofounders of the UK Company ‘Deep Mind’ now sold/dissipated/shared around Google & Microsoft. Yet still run and based in London by these guys. The UK Government is buying in this expertise that grew from a get-together through Uni and family in London but now owned by foreign countries. You could reason already bought and paid for by the UK taxpayer, education etc.
Conservatively(small ‘c’) that is at least $1 trillion value of strategic digital world lost and now being paid for once more by the UK Parliament, or more correctly the UK taxpayer is paying to entities that pay the bulk of their taxes in foreign domains.
Over £3.35bn is the overall spend by government departments on AI contracts, then the irony that is £3.35bn is to be paid to foreign companies, for something the UK owned but discarded by Parliament. Can anyone detect its use? can anyone detect the efficiencies? All we see is that Government departments are growing exponentially for no net gain
We have a parliament not fit, not understanding, an analogue World, so suggesting they should grasp a digital world is enough to make their heads explode. To much chat about things that mean nothing to anyone but their personal self, and certainly not things that stand up in the Big Wide World of free trading democracies. Orders from the unelected unaccountable EU bosses is the best they can cope with, even then they don’t see what they mean.
February 25, 2026
Not sure how any government can “get on” and build a reservoir. It would be opposed and legally challenged by a whole host of organisations which would delay it for decades and multiply the costs enourmously. Just as for the Lower Thames Crossing. All local MPs of all parties would join in opposing it (just as my local Labour MP opposes the Heathrow third runway).
February 25, 2026
I don’t understand argument for Heathrow expansion (happy to be have my mind changed).
1. Approx. 26% to 42% of passengers at London Heathrow travel for business. How does increasing Heathrow increase this business revenue to the country? Can people be clear and concise here and not overly vague.
2. Increasing Gatwick means more leisure travellers can fly there instead of to Heathrow. Leisure travellers don’t mind the slightly longer train journey into London (compared to business people)
3. Heathrow costs much more for tax payer than expansion of Gatwick
4. NOISE POLLUTION to our great and beautiful city. One reason people love to work in the London is because it is such a FAB city. Noise pollution will put more people wanting to come and live here – and to come here for TOURISM.
5. Expansion of Stansted would help develop Cambridge area as UK second Silicon Valley. Stanstead already does long-haul. And these long-haul flights could be extended to USA / Asia / India etc.
To me, expansion of Heathrow seems like overkill. And people just bleating ‘expand, expand’ for vague, subjective reasons without really thinking about it. But might be wrong. Happy for someone to say why. Thanks
February 25, 2026
Also, just been reading that Heathrow already ranked best-connected airport on the world for 2025.
The more I look at it, the more Heathrow expansion is looking like another HS2 white elephant (but nearly as bad as HS2 but still bad). And that’s it’s a case of lots of people bleating without really thinking about it / without really giving convincing arguments why.
And wouldn’t the money be better invested helping British high-tech companies and entrepreneurs (whilst also helping Gatwick and Stansted expansion)? And/or spend the money on trying to pay off her massive debt and to bring down immigration and build up skills in general so there is less pressure to defend immigration.
Reply The Heathrow project will not be paid for by government and taxpayers!
February 26, 2026
Sir John,
Not an expert on this but there is also the problem of noise pollution – not just aesthetic problem but also affecting our economy (London will become a less attractive place to attract talented people to come and live here and could affect tourism).
But there is going to be big indirect costs to the tax payer in the form for example of having to improve transport links to the airport. This could cost billions. Also how enthusiastic are airlines about this when airport fees will go up?
Reply Try reading about the scheme before commenting. The private sector scheme is made dearer by the need to build over the M 25.
February 26, 2026
I’ve seen hidden costs of up to £17 billion for taxpayer. Not as bad as HS2 but still in the white elephant territory when our country is so in debt and spending that 17 billion would be much better spent on helping to grow our high tech industry in particular in the Cambridge area.
Reply It is a private sector investment!
February 26, 2026
Also and lastly, Sir John, not only will tax payer have to pay up to 17 billion perhaps for infrastructure costs for Heathrow the airport is 17 billion in debt already. Increasing the possibility of the tax payer having to bail out the airport in the future (not forgetting Heathrow is part of our national infrastructure – so we can’t afford a financial crash with the airport)
Best
February 26, 2026
Yes, I agree, sir, upfront costs are 49 billion. But then there are the indirect costs of building infrastructure to airport which could be 17 billion and that tax payer has to pick up. Not as bad as white elephant as HS2. But nearly a 1/5 of the white elephant as HS2 in cost (but then the noise-pollution damage to our FAB and beautiful city of London – literally the best city in the world – by far, I’m not exaggerating)! (And when we could use that 17 billion to invest in high tech and / or pay off our national debt and / or to bring down immigration) Best.
(Not saying I’m overwhelming right but nor do I see any overwhelming reason for expansion at Heathrow either).
February 25, 2026
Also, if California (with it Silicon Valley) were an economy it would be the 4th largest economy in the world. But its airport/s don’t come in the top most connected airports in the world (just done some research and it’s not in the top 10 at least – might even be further down).
Whilst Istanbul is the second most connected in the airport.
So, again, I don’t see how increasing Heathrow’s connectivity is going to increase the economy in any dramatic way or at all, not forgotten the huge cost of Heathrow airport, noise pollution to our great city (and how that will put off people coming to work in London – and the City – as well as tourism), when expanding Gatwick and Stansted would be cheaper, freeing up Heathrow (which is only about 25% to 40% used by business people anyway) and when the money would be better spent helping people in high tech (or using the money to pay off her our eye-watering large debt and / or to reduce immigration etc).
Heathrow is looking increasingly like another HS2 with people just bleating about it and not really thinking about it.
February 26, 2026
Thank goodness you have thought about it all, helps us bleaters no end.
February 25, 2026
74 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK 24th Feb 2026 ……just in time to vote tomorrow
February 25, 2026
Generally your respondents,with some exceptions,input commonsense knowledge/experience and how to
go forward for the sake of our todays and later generations’ tomorrows.Unfortunately any scroll of mass-
media publications or switching on to tv current affairs’ panel discussions(regrettably I include the now
emasculated GB prog.offerings) clearly evidences that we are urinating in the wind.Whitehall and the rest
of the hangers-on simply does not give a toss.I fear for the future .
February 26, 2026
JR was told he was whistling in the wind re Bank of England losses.
Nobody cared he was told.
Well now everyone is talking of it, so persistence when you have the facts pays off.
February 26, 2026
Dear Sir John,
My argument about Heathrow is more in the spirit of a conservative such as Sir John Betjeman who wanted to conserve the CHARM of traditional Britain (although I’m more into capitalism / being an entrepreneur than him). Capitalism and charm should go together. In fact, the economy benefits from CHARM (tourism / people want to come to London and work in the City partly because it is such a charming city – don’t start me off why I think it’s such a great city) as opposed to reducing everything to utilitarian value. Noise pollution is the biggest killer of this charm (my argument is NOT about CO2 etc). And that this money could be spent much better – 17 billion of tax payer money on infrastructure – on High Tech sector and/or to pay off our national debt / bring down immigration – whilst expanding Gatwick and Stansted – and whilst Heathrow already hugely in debt which is a risk to the tay payer in the future). Best
March 1, 2026
this is worth a read John
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/27/datacenter_uk_grid_demand/