The Rundown: Edition 20 – Nvidia’s $5tn valuation, jobs at Skyrora, and spooky season ends
Welcome to The Rundown, a snapshot of news, views and intel from the fast-growth tech and investment scene.
Thanks to those who have flagged events or stories of interest, please keep them coming. You can send updates for next week to [email protected], and do
Amazon and PwC announce AI-related job losses
Amazon will reduce its workforce by 14,000, citing the transformative capabilities of AI. PwC has also announced a headcount cut of 5,600, marking its first workforce size reduction since the wake of the financial crisis. Times
Tech Secretary Liz Kendall pledges £55bn R&D boost
The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSIT) has allocated £55bn for R&D following the publication of analysis which states that for every £1 of public investment in research and development, long-term returns equate to £8 in net economic benefits. UKTN
Nvidia becomes the first $5tn company
The Silicon Valley giant continues to propel the AI stock market boom and passes the valuation landmark just three months after it reached $4tn. AI tech valuations continue to surge, fuelling concern of a bubble. Guardian
Legaltech Robin AI up for sale
The startup is reportedly being marketed for “accelerated disposal” by RSM UK following a $50m funding round that didn’t complete. A document seen by Pathfounders states that final offers are expected by 13th November. Pathfounders
Budget tax raid plotted following £20bn downgrade
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to stand by his election pledge not to increase Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT. The move follows more gloomy news for the Treasury, which saw the UK’s productivity forecast downgraded. FT
Synthesia hits $4bn valuation after new funding round
The British AI video generation startup Synthesia has raised $200m, led by Alphabet’s venture firm GV, according to a Forbes exclusive. The new round nearly doubles Synthesia’s value to $4bn. Forbes
Data centre giant Equinix invests £3.9bn in UK
Equinix will develop one of Europe’s biggest data centre campuses on the 85-acre site in South Mimms, Hertfordshire. The facility’s construction will create 2,500 jobs and double the company’s processing power in Britain. Sky News
Compliance tech developer Formalize raises €30m
Copenhagen-based Formalize, which supports companies in managing regulatory change, has announced a Series B funding round co-led by Acton Capital and Blackfin Tech, with participation from West Hill Capital and CIBC Innovation Banking. Tech.EU
Student housing platform Housr raises £7.5m Series A
Manchester-based Housr, a free-to-use app that offers rental and housemate searches, bill splitting and rewards, has announced the funding round with participation from Texas-based Ashta Capital and Juniper Equity. UKTN
Solidatus secures £5m from Salica Investments
The startup, a provider of data lineage solutions, has secured a £5m loan from the Growth Debt Fund at Salica Investments to support research and drive growth. Tech.EU
AI consciousness and the artificially aware
Can AI become conscious? If so, when? Dr Daniel Hulme, CEO and Co-founder of Conscium, argues that if consciousness exists, it can be detected, measured, and built into machines, as “Large Language Models are very crude representations of the brain”. WIRED
Scotland’s super space skills
Scotland has a burgeoning space sector, with 8,000 people working in the industry and plans to reach 20,000 over the next decade. Among the companies looking to expand and grow their workforce is Skyrora, which has identified a “vast gap in some major roles”. BBC
The hunt for rare earth materials intensifies
US President Donald Trump has signed a rare earth mineral supply deal with four Asian nations. Mike Rosenberg, Strategic Management Professor at IESE Business School, believes that China has enabled a “strategic” market shift, making projects in other countries unprofitable. CNBC
Oh, to be young and entrepreneurial in Britain
The Entrepreneurs Network’s new report Ambition Unlimited, has found that the UK is losing its edge to overseas rivals that are enticing young founders away. Challenges that inhibit growth include investment, regulation, immigration, taxation, and culture. City AM
Earlier this year, Kvertus launched Project Atlas, an initiative to create an advanced anti-drone ‘wall’ spanning 1,300km across the frontline. Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Kvertus, says that the defencetech company is representing the “new ecosystem in electronic warfare”. LBC
One step closer to Q-Day
Among the initiatives to advance post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is Google’s quantum chip, Willow, which can overcome “a major hurdle in building large-scale quantum systems”, according to Florent Michel, Head of Cryptography at Optalysys. CSO
Critical national infrastructure is under attack
Critical national infrastructure, often built on outdated or fragmented systems, is increasingly vulnerable to attacks like the one on a Norwegian dam, which was described as “remarkably simple” by Tommy Evensen, CISO at Omny. SC Magazine
Happy Halloween! In some not-so-happy, but definitely rather scary, news, we’ve fallen short of the decade-old Paris Climate Agreement, as humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5°C. UN Secretary-General António Guterres says we must change course “immediately”. However, ahead of COP30 in Brazil next week, 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon emissions, and if successful, this would represent around 30% of global emissions. Yet, Bill Gates believes we’re too focused on near-term emissions goals and national emissions reporting, and that innovation is key to cutting costs, which will foster widespread adoption – particularly in fission or fusion technologies that he says will be the “cheapest way to make electricity”.
Despite the upsides of AI – the average person can utilise the tech for everything from summarising documents to generating images to “zero-click” searches – there certainly are downsides. Did you know AI is being used to falsify receipts? The tech is causing a surge in expense fraud, with nearly 30% of US and UK financial professionals surveyed by expense management platform Medius reporting they’d seen a rise in falsified receipts following the launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4 last year. How about the fact that AI is also being used by teenage boys for romance and therapy? Some boys are being drawn in by the “hyper-personalised” nature of AI bots, which Male Allies UK believes may leave the youngsters unable to socialise or respect boundaries. Well, apparently, everything is actually fine, and the antidote to all this catastrophising AI “doomerism” is religion.
European car sales rose for a third consecutive month last month, as consumers could choose from more affordable EVs. Sales of fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids increased by a third; however, profit for China’s BYD has declined 33% amidst the company’s overseas push. Wherever the future of the car industry heads, one thing is for sure: LED headlights should be a bit dimmer.