London Calling

A surprising flurry of optimistic posts about London and the UK tech scene flooded my timeline yesterday. It took me quite by surprise, to be completely honest. The usual chorus of doomer rants seemed to have vanished entirely, replaced by an infectious energy that I haven’t seen in a very long time.

As the father of a 16-year-old son, I’ve adopted a worried and pessimistic outlook on the future he is inheriting. It is a mindset built on years of observing economic stagnation and political missteps, so I was genuinely pleased to have that challenged by this unexpected wave of enthusiasm.

Judging from what I’ve been reading on X, the consensus among the young tech groovers is clear. What the government really needs to do is quit their ridiculous censorship obsession, and then go all in on nuclear power to solve our glaring energy woes, and then simply sit back and watch as the economy recovers.

I am under no illusions that they will actually do that, rather they will continue down this frustrating road they have already embarked on. Endless attacks on privacy masked as safety measures, along with crazy expensive energy prices that cripple households and businesses alike. Both of these factors are contributing to a deep, general feeling of malaise across the country. To say that I feel this is a shame is a massive understatement; it feels like a squandered opportunity on a national scale.

Based on what I’ve been reading though, it seems that despite the worst efforts of the government, London is really thriving again against all the odds. This time it is the AI craze driving it, and I can really understand why the city has become the focal point. Demis Hassabis’s decision to keep Google DeepMind rooted in London is undoubtedly a massive part of it, serving as a powerful anchor for top-tier talent. But there is so much going for London that makes it a genuinely great place to live and work, from its cultural richness to its global connectivity. It is not surprising at all that people are talking about it as the global place to be once again. Now that the other AI giants are opening significant offices there, it seems London is rapidly becoming the AI capital of the world, with the very real potential to overtake San Francisco in the long run.

I am someone with deep, personal roots in London; my mother was born there, and the city’s history is woven directly into my family’s. As a child, I was a dedicated “rail rider”, and my dad used to take us down on the train from York every other weekend for the grand sum of 50p. Those trips were absolute magic. If you take a look at the war memorial in King’s Cross Station today, you will see the names of several Blakes etched into the stone. They were all railway men from my dad’s side of the family who helped build the very infrastructure of the place.

After I finished school, I didn’t go to university. I went to work in a shoe shop at Affleck’s Palace in Manchester instead, soaking up a very different kind of cultural revolution.

After I finally got the whole “Madchester” thing out of my system, I decided it was time to move to the Big Smoke and I am incredibly glad I did. My arrival in London coincided with the birth of the internet revolution and it was just an amazing place to be. After many adventures and missteps, I found myself sitting in a trendy web agency in Shoreditch, right in the engine room of the dot-com boom. Those were incredibly heady days. To be honest, I can’t remember a lot of it, but what I do remember will stay with me for the rest of my days. There was just this amazing, crackling excitement in the air, the undeniable feeling of being in the centre of the world, and being young in a brilliant city like London. Honestly, there is nothing quite like it.

Now it seems like that exact same magic could be happening all over again with AI, and I really hope that it is for my son’s sake. If only the government would step back and help make it happen, or at least get out of the way, instead of doing seemingly everything they can to wreck the revolution before it even gets started.