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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech during a visit to the Manufacturing Futures Lab at UCL in London, on Jan. 13, 2025, as he prepares to launch a plan to harness AI to spur growth and efficiency in the country.
British PM wants sovereign AI
On Monday, the British government announced the AI Opportunities Action Plan, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s economic and technological development plan for artificial intelligence. Starmer’s goals include building a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, building data centers nationwide, and exploring renewable energy sources — including nuclear energy — to power the data centers.
Last year, Starmer canceled $1.7 billion of spending commitments meant for computing infrastructure as part of a broader set of budget cuts — nixing the promises made under the prior administration of Rishi Sunak. Starmer is now trying to leave his own mark with a play for “sovereign AI” in the country. “Today’s plan mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation – revolutionizing our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets,” the government wrote in a press release.
As part of the initiative, three companies — Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl — committed $17 billion to build data centers, a plan the government says will create 13,250 jobs across the UK and increase compute capacity twentyfold by 2030. The ultimate goal: Starmer’s government wants to make the UK “irresistible” to AI firms.
FILE PHOTO: Christmas decorations adorn the outside of the Royal Exchange building in London, Britain, November 26, 2024.
Hard Numbers: UK signs big free trade deal, Russian tankers go down, ABC settles with Trump, Congo peace talks collapse.
12: The UK became the 12th member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership on Saturday, signing its biggest free trade agreement since Brexit. The deal will allow the UK lower trade tariffs with Canada, Mexico, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam — but it’s a far cry from the single EU market Britain left behind.
2: A pair of Russian oil tankers in the Black Sea suffered severe damage in a heavy storm near Crimea on Sunday, with at least one ship breaking up and the other reportedly running aground. Each ship had a capacity for around 3,500 tons of oil, and streaks of petroleum floating on water are visible on video from the accident, but the severity of the spill is not clear.
15 million: ABC News agreed on Sunday to pay $15 millionto settle a defamation lawsuit with President-elect Donald Trump, over comments from anchor George Stephanopoulos regarding Trump being found liable for sexual abuse in a New York court. The money will reportedly go toward a future presidential library.
12: M23 rebels in northeastern Congo were accused of slaughtering 12 civilians during an attack on Friday, just ahead of planned peace talks between Congo and Rwanda, which allegedly backs M23. The talks collapsed, with neither side showing up in Angola, which has been attempting to mediate the conflict.
Putin's strategy in Ukraine ahead of Trump's return
Putin has been warning them not to do that. They decided they were going to, the Russian response has been to formally change their nuclear doctrine so that they would be considered to be in a state of war legally against any country that allowed Ukraine to use their missiles against Russia. In other words, essentially, Russia is claiming that they're now at war with France, with the UK, with the United States. And also, the Russians used a medium range missile hypersonic nuclear capable directly against the Ukrainian target in Dnipro.
In other words, what we're seeing from Putin is, "I'm showing you what you're doing is moving towards World War III, and that's how I'm responding." Does that mean that Putin is actually escalating towards direct war with NATO allies? The answer to that is no. He wasn't doing that when he was losing the battle in Ukraine in the early months. He's certainly not doing it now that he's winning.
And he is winning. He has more troops on the front lines, including those from North Korea, those from Yemen, those that he's getting from other countries. Also, he's taking more territory on the ground in Ukraine at a faster pace now, more significant amounts of territory in Southeast Ukraine than at any point since the opening months of the war. Plus Trump is President-elect. Trump has said, "I want to end this war." And he is coming in just in a couple of months.
So what Putin is doing is not threatening World War III. He's instead showing off just how bad this Biden policy is, this existing NATO policy is. He's making it easier for Trump to pivot away and say, "I'm the peacemaker. We were heading towards World War III, this horrible escalation. I'm the guy that got the great deal done and look how brilliant I am." Putin is facilitating that.
Now, of course, to make that happen Trump still has to give Putin something that he wants. He has to give an outcome that is acceptable to Putin. And Putin's made clear, at least thus far, that he's not going to give up any territory that he has. That he's not prepared to accept that Ukraine would be able to join NATO. He's also said that Ukraine can't continue to have a functional armed forces which is something that would be completely unacceptable to Ukraine.
The devil's going to be in the details here. There clearly is an opportunity for Trump to end the war. He's promised he's going to end the war, and I think he can. I think he can create a ceasefire. The Ukrainian leadership has already made clear that they are supportive of ending the war, but they're not just going to listen. There has to be a back and forth conversation with the Americans. Seeing what it is that Trump is prepared to put forward, and whether or not the Russians are capable of accepting it, are willing to accept it. Even though it will look like a win for Russia compared to where they would've been under Biden, under Harris, or at any other point in the last couple of years.
Still, if you are Putin, there is an open question. You're taking land right now. The Ukrainians don't have the people to continue to put up a strong defense. Why wouldn't you delay this out for another three, another six months? Take more land. Try to get all the territory that you have formally annexed over the course of the war. Why not settle the war on your terms? A lot easier to do if you're winning than losing. And the question there will be to what extent Trump is willing to cause material punishment to Putin if he doesn't say yes.
And that's an open question. Trump historically has been willing to take easy wins that don't necessarily play well over the long term. Look at Afghanistan. He wanted to get the Americans out. He cut a deal with the Taliban. It was a deal that was clearly very advantageous from a military and from a governance perspective for the Taliban than it was for the United States. He cut that despite the fact that the allies were not supportive or coordinating. That undermined the US deeply. Biden then continued with that plan. And it was one of the biggest losses that the US has experienced over the last four years.
Now, that of course, was a loss that ultimately fell on Biden. This would be a loss that would ultimately fall on Trump. And so does he want to risk that? That's a very interesting question. And of course, you also have to look at Trump's staff because he can make a phone call with Zelensky and with Putin, but ultimately, it is the secretary of state, the national security advisor and others that are going to have to work out the details of that agreement. And those people, at least thus far, are not people that are oriented towards giving away the store to Putin. They're people-oriented towards mistrust of Putin, towards a hard line against the Russians, towards support of Ukraine.
I am thinking here that number one, there's a reasonably high chance that Trump can get the win that he wants, but number two, this isn't likely to be a walk in the park for the Russian president. The Europeans need to play here as well. And what will be important, there's been a few formulated conversations thus far between President-elect Trump and some of the European leaders.
They haven't gone very far, but they've also not blown up the bilateral relationships. Their ability to work with Trump advisors on Trump, and on a greater coordination of what an ultimate solution or settlement of the Russian-Ukraine war would be, will make a dramatic difference as to what extent this is sustainable. To what extent this leads to not only Ukraine that can continue to defend itself and the territory that it is left with, but also can integrate into Europe, can be politically successful as a democracy over time. And that NATO will stay strong and stay together and stay aligned with the United States because they don't have another choice. There is no autonomous European military capacity. It's either NATO sticks together or it fragments.
Those are all things that we're going to watch very carefully over the course of the next couple months. But for now, an escalatory period. And it's all performative and it's all oriented towards what happens when Trump becomes president. That's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Robert Jenrick greets Kemi Badenoch, after Badenoch was announced as the new leader of Britain's Conservative Party, in London, Britain, November 2, 2024.
Can Britain’s new Tory leader become Thatcher 2.0?
Self-proclaimed “straight speaker”Kemi Badenoch won the leadership of the UK Conservative Party on Saturday – the first Black woman to do so – and promises to take the party further to the right.
Who is Badenoch? The British-born daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Badenoch champions “migrant patriotism,” rejects “woke” ideologies, and embraces cultural conservatism. She’s pro-Brexit,an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and campaigned on a platform of freedom and individual responsibility. Badenoch’s got a major task cleaning up after Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, but she’s aiming high. She says she will defeat Labour and win back voters lost to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party by reasserting core Conservative values.
And while some have criticized her bluntness, Badenoch considers it an asset. At the party’s weekend conference, she declared, “A lot of people are not used to a politician who says it like it is.” Straight talk, indeed.
What could Badenoch bode well for Britain?In a BBC interview on Sunday, Badenoch stated that, if elected, her economic policies would be “completely the opposite” of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ and would focus on tax cuts. She criticized previous Conservative leaders for their broken promises on immigration and taxes, which damaged voter trust. But she also said Johnson’sPartygate scandal was“overblown” and refused to “churn over” everything that went wrong with previous Tory prime ministers.
We’ll be watching whether her neo-Thatcherite no-nonsense approach unifies or alienates more moderate Tories.
June 16, 2023 - Paris, France: Saudi Arabia s crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman arrives at the Elysee palace for his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Hard Numbers: Aramco invests, Japan frets, Perplexity gets popular — and sued, UK sentences man in deepfake case
25: When surveyed, only 25% of Japanese respondents said that AI makes them nervous — the lowest mark of any of the 32 countries that Ipsos polled recently. But the country has been very slow to adopt AI or lean fully into its research. Stanford’s count of the “foundation models” for generative AI found that 182 of them originated in the United States, while none originated in Japan. The country is open to AI, but its tech sector just isn’t diving in yet.
350 million: Perplexity is an ascendant AI search engine — it fielded 350 million user queries in September alone. That’s a big uptick considering users asked only 500 million questions in all of 2023. As it’s grown, the company has come under fire from news publishers. Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, sued Perplexity last week alleging copyright violations. In response, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said he won’t pay to license content from news publishers but is discussing a revenue-sharing agreement similar to how Spotify pays musical artists.
18: In a landmark court decision, a judge in the United Kingdom sentenced a 27-year-old man to 18 years in prison for using AI to create child sexual abuse material. The man pleaded guilty to using a US-based service called Daz 3D to transform real photos of children into explicit deepfakes in violation of British law.The British government on Thursday announced it would return the Chagos Islands, a group of tiny atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean, back to Mauritius — while retaining its joint military base with the US on Diego Garcia.
Britain gives back key islands to Mauritius
British Conservatives lambasted the agreement, with the man likely to become the new Tory leader, Robert Jenrick, describing it as “a dangerous capitulation that will hand our territory to an ally of Beijing.” Jenrick has his facts slightly wrong — Mauritius is not a formal ally of China — but the two countries do have growing economic ties, and the security concerns are real. American military air operations in the Middle East and South Asia depend on the base.
The UK will retain sovereignty of the base, pay Mauritius rent, and subsidize the resettlement of the Indigenous people on the islands. We’re watching how the change affects US and allied military posture, and whether the British public backs Starmer on the choice.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a joint press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy in the Locarno room at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London, Britain, September 10, 2024.
US accuses Iran and China of supplying Russian war machine
Iran and China have found themselves in the crosshairs of accusations from Washington. They stand accused of being Russia’s partners in crime in its ongoing war against Ukraine.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Tuesday that China is giving Russia “very substantial” support for its war machine in exchange for top-secret Russian submarine and missile technology. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Iran of supplying Moscow with short-range ballistic missiles and announced new sanctions on both countries, which will also be enforced by France and Germany.
Tehran denies involvement, but the West knows Iran has been sending Moscow so-called “suicide drones,” and ballistic missiles are seen as an escalation. North Korea, meanwhile, has been providing Russia with missiles since at least January, which has brought Moscow and Pyongyang closer, to the chagrin of both Beijing and Washington. Eurasia Group, our parent company, highlighted the growing affinity between Russia, Iran, and North Korea as one of its top risks for 2024.
But the debate around Beijing’s support of Moscow – China also denies supplying Russia for its war effort – has thus far focused on “dual-use” items, such as mechanical components that can be used in drones and missiles.
Campbell’s unambiguous but vague accusation could strain Sino-American ties despite efforts by both sides – US and Chinese military officials just held high-level talks aimed at keeping open channels of communication – to stabilize the relationship. He did not lay out plans for sanctions or other possible reactions to China’s alleged support, but Blinken and Lammy will be in Kyiv tomorrow, and we will be watching how their meetings go in light of the revelations.
People inspect a damaged building after the Russian missile attack on the premises of the lyceum of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management in Poltava, Ukraine.
Hard Numbers: Russian missile strike prompts fresh Kyiv calls for air defenses, Corruption makes African youth look abroad, Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel, Housing woes hit all-time highs in rich countries, US Marines assaulted in Turkey
51: A Russian ballistic missile strike on a military academy and a hospital in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday killed at least 51 people. After the attack, which occurred in the city of Poltava, about 200 miles from the front lines, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for Western allies to send more air defenses. Separately, the US and Ukraine are close to an agreement on the supply of long-range missiles.
60: How bad is corruption in African countries? Bad enough that 60% of the continent’s young people aged 18 to 24 want to leave because of it, according to a new study by the South Africa-based Ichikowitz Family Foundation. The top destination of choice was North America, followed by Western Europe.
12: At least 12 migrants are dead after their boat capsized in the English Channel en route from France to the UK on Tuesday. Last week, the French and British governments pledged to jointly crack down on the human trafficking networks that bring asylum-seekers across the channel in small boats.
50: The lack of affordable housing is a problem for at least 50% of people in the OECD, a group of nearly 40 wealthy democracies. That’s the highest level of dissatisfaction on record. A combination of high interest rates – which make home loans more expensive – and sluggish construction are to blame. In the US, housing costs are nearly 40% higher than when the Biden administration took office, making housing a key issue in the presidential election. See here for our special report on what Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have pledged to do about it.
2: Two US Marines were assaulted on Monday in Izmir, Turkey, by members of the Turkish Youth Union, a nationalist and anti-American youth organization. Police reportedly detained 15 people over the incident. A video of the altercation showed a group pushing and grabbing two men dressed in civilian clothes, and attempting to put a sack over one of their heads while chanting “Yankee, go home.” Police and other Marines in the area eventually intervened. The two Marines were taken to a hospital to be evaluated but were not injured and have returned to their ship, the USS Wasp.