British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said that he will invest 4.5 billion pounds in eight manufacturing sectors, including automobiles and green industries. , to support industries vital to the UK’s economic growth, of which the automotive industry accounts for a large part.

It is said that the funds will be available within five years from 2025, of which 2 billion pounds will be earmarked for the automotive industry and 975 million pounds for aviation. In the aerospace industry, 960 million pounds are used for clean energy, and 520 million pounds are used for life sciences.

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Jeremy Hunt said: “We will use £4.5 billion to leverage more capital from the private sector, which in turn will boost our economic growth and create more skilled, better-paid jobs in new industries. , these industries are here to stay.”

Jeremy Hunt also told reporters the pledge was “new money” rather than a reallocation of previously announced spending, and that the UK favored targeted support rather than blanket subsidies. “We are not going to get caught up in a global subsidy race,” he said.

Business investment in Britain was 4% above pre-pandemic levels as of the third quarter – a performance better than Germany but slightly worse than France and the United States, according to a Reuters analysis of OECD data.

Earlier on Friday, the Equality and Progress Party (IPPR), a think tank that bills itself as an advocate for progressive policies, published a report showing that years of inconsistent industrial strategies have severely damaged British business investment.

George Dibb, director of IPPR’s Center for Economic Justice, said: “Now is the time to clarify the UK’s strategic objectives, such as developing green manufacturing and the services needed for the future, and then use all available tools to achieve this.”

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The U.K. is preparing to host a new global AI summit that will bring together governments, companies and researchers to examine the risks posed by AI and discuss how to mitigate them.

One of the reasons companies are reluctant to share their internal Dragon 8 is that such behaviour could reveal proprietary information about their products. If malicious actors know more internal information, it could also make artificial LW models vulnerable to cyberattacks.

One of the things the government wants to check is model weights, which define the strength of connections between neurons in different layers of the model, according to the FT. Currently, AI companies are not required to share these details, but there have been calls for more transparency in this area.

The UK will hold its first summit at Bletchley Park in November. Bletchley Park holds an important place in the history of computing, as it was here that Nazi information was decrypted. The Turing Test, which is related to artificial intelligence, is named after Alan Turing, who also cracked codes there.

The Financial Times notes that Google’s DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic all agreed in June to open up their models to the UK government for research and security purposes. Unfortunately, at the time, the parties did not agree on the scope and technical details of the openness. Now, the government is asking for quite a bit of openness.

At the end of the day, for the summit to be a success, attendees must have a full understanding of how the models work so that they can better understand their dangers, whether they will have sufficient access to them is another question.

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The technology has been tested at three locations, successfully capturing sounds and images of various animals, which are analyzed and localized by computers. Dozens of different bird species were identified from their calls, and animals ranging from foxes to deer to hedgehogs to bats were also accurately identified without the involvement of human observers.

Anthony Danser, a conservation expert at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), said, “We have collected tens of thousands of data files and thousands of hours of audio from these test sites, and we have found a variety of animals. If we use human observers, we cannot Doing this at this scale is only possible with artificial intelligence.”

It is noticed that the project selected three test locations next to the railway, namely Barnes, Twickenham and Lewisham in London. The areas are owned by Network Rail, which has played a major role in the project. These areas are fenced to keep people from straying onto the tracks, and maintenance crews rarely enter. British Rail owns more than 52,000 hectares, many of which play an important role in protecting the country’s biodiversity.

ZSL and British Rail plan to expand the use of AI monitors to other areas, including Chobham and the New Forest in Surrey. “At the sites we’ve tested, we’ve found more than 30 species of birds and six species of bats, as well as signs of animals such as foxes and hedgehogs, so we were pleasantly surprised by the relatively healthy level of wildlife found in London,” Danser said “However, this was not the main aim of our project. Our aim was to demonstrate that AI-led techniques, combining acoustic and camera traps, can be effective in surveying wildlife on UK rail lands, but also in other parts of the UK. This will tell us how species respond to climate change, and how we should manage vegetation, not just next to railways, but along road verges and other places.” important.

By analyzing tens of thousands of hours of recordings and hundreds of thousands of pictures, machine learning technology will play a key role in protecting biodiversity and providing more accurate data support.

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The UK official press release states that the purpose of the bill is to give the CMA greater powers and penalties to tackle the problem of “excessive dominance” by technology companies, in order to further promote competition and protect consumers.

The CMA did not specify in its press release which companies with a “strategic market position” would be monitored, but companies with a global turnover of more than £25 billion (currently around RMB 215 billion) and a UK turnover of more than £1 billion (currently around RMB 8.6 billion) would be included in the regulation, and Apple, Google and Amazon are likely to fall into this category.

These companies would likely be required to improve the transparency of their app shops and review systems, and the agency would have the power to open up specific markets as appropriate.

For example, Apple could be required to open up third-party app stores, allowing iPhone and iPad users to download apps and games from other app stores, etc.

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“Based on our work to date, the Bank of England and HM Treasury judge that the digital pound may be needed in the future,” the Governor of the Bank of England (BoE) and current Chancellor of the Exchequer reportedly said in an excerpt from a consultation paper.

“It is too early to commit to building the infrastructure for it, but we believe further preparatory work is justified.”

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The digital pound would use the blockchain technology currently used by cryptocurrencies to record transfers on a central digital ledger, which would theoretically allow banks to issue new money directly to individuals or businesses digitally. The digital pound would also allow people to hold digital currency on devices such as smartphones without the need for a bank account, similar to the way physical cash is kept in wallets.

The Bank of England and the Treasury will launch a four-month consultation, at which time businesses, academics and the wider public will be invited to give their views on the launch of the digital pound.

In addition, the Bank of England and the Treasury will begin the “design” phase of the project to develop a blueprint for how to build and use the digital pound. The creation of the digital pound is expected to take several years, and sources said it will involve “significant public investment.

The report also said the Bank of England has set 2025 as the “earliest” date the bank can start building and testing prototypes of the currency. The bank has previously said that the earliest date for the launch of the digital pound is 2026-2030.

Other countries are already experimenting with national digital currencies and China is one of the early pioneers, with the digital yuan starting to be tested in 2021.

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According to the report, Shell Energy was the most complained about by customers among broadband and landline companies (Shell has integrated its energy business with broadband provider First Utility and rebranded it as Shell Energy), while the worst mobile operators were BT Mobile and Virgin Mobile.

The data shows that Shell Energy received fewer complaints compared to the previous quarter, but the majority of complaints received were for faults and service issues.

In addition, Sky received the fewest complaints and EE did a good job with its fixed line services. As for mobile operators, Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile and EE received the fewest complaints.

“Overall complaint levels have been low in recent months, but some providers need to improve their levels to match the standards of customer service offered by their competitors,” said Fergal Farragher, Ofcom’s director of consumer protection.

Ofcom said it would be keeping a close eye on Shell’s performance as its complaint volumes were significantly higher than those received by its competitors.

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That will include seed funding for startups, help for existing companies to scale up and new incentives for private venture capital, Bloomberg said, citing officials familiar with the plan. Ministers will set up a semiconductor working group to coordinate public and private support to increase the manufacture of compound semiconductors in Britain over the next three years, they added.

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Asked about the report, a British government spokesman said they would not comment on speculation, stressing only that the country’s semiconductor strategy would be published in due course. The U.K. government said last month that it is exploring national initiatives to expand the domestic chip industry, including the possible creation of a new body as part of its plans to boost infrastructure.

The U.K. Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said in a statement that the strategy aims to “unlock the full potential of the chip business” and support jobs, and will also seek to ensure a reliable supply of semiconductors.

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Under the new rules, Ofcom will require all phone networks to identify and block fraudulent calls where technically feasible, phone companies should ensure that numbers conform to the UK’s 10- or 11-digit format and that they should block “whitelisted” calls from Ofcom, as well as Caller ID calls from abroad that spoof the UK should also be blocked.

TalkTalk has voluntarily implemented these new rules and says it has observed a 65% reduction in the number of customer complaints about fraudulent calls. Other non-compliant phone companies will have six months to make the necessary changes, and these rules will be implemented from May 2023. Unfortunately, Ofcom has not yet provided details on fines to be imposed on companies that fail to implement the new guidelines.

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In an official statement to the market earlier today, Vodafone wrote: “The envisaged transaction will involve the two companies combining their UK operations, with Vodafone owning 51 percent and our partner CK Hutchison owning 49 percent of the combined business.” Vodafone noted that the statement itself was made in response to media speculation about a possible deal. It described the merger as a “cashless” transaction – meaning there is no actual price tag, valuation of the deal, or other financial consideration to be paid, as in an acquisition.

Vodafone’s publicly traded market capitalization in the UK is currently around £28.7 billion, or $32.2 billion at today’s exchange rate, and CK Hutchison’s is around $21 billion (but controls other assets).

The story of the UK mobile operator has always seemed like a legendary soap opera, with Three having had a major merger attempt in the past, a deal to buy rival operator O2 for £10.25 billion. However, the deal was blocked by regulators in 2016; a decision that was only overturned by regulators four years later, in 2020.

By then, O2 had moved to a different combination: it merged with Virgin Media/Virgin Mobile (Virgin Media itself had been acquired by Liberty Media and merged with its pay-TV assets) in a deal worth $39 billion. Meanwhile, EE – itself a merger of T-Mobile and Orange, which was acquired by France Telecom and then spun off – was acquired by BT (which once owned O2, then spun it off, and then also reportedly intended to buy it back) for US$19 billion. (In the interim, Three also did some smaller deals, such as a deal to buy UK Broadband for $373 million to gain more mobile spectrum.)

However, Vodafone has always kept its distance from all this drama. Arguably, this is partly because it is the market leader in Europe as a whole, and in the UK in particular. However, these various M&A moves did have the effect of helping other operators gain more scale, thus putting more pressure on the market leader.

Now Vodafone needs Three’s scale to compete, and Three needs Vodafone. If the two parties do enter into a formal merger process, the deal will need to be approved by regulators. In the past, Three’s overturned merger ruling did not result in Three coming together with O2, but in the end, it may still prove useful as it sets the stage for approving any subsequent large mergers that Three may attempt, such as the one now with Vodafone.

Mobile operators have always aimed to increase market scale – which is crucial to the economics of the capital-intensive, infrastructure-intensive operator business model – but more importantly now, this scale gives operators data and customer ownership, and because content and services have been decoupled from the customer’s operator relationship, there are fewer ways for operators to achieve subscriber profitability, and the issue of scale is at the heart of this latest The issue of scale is also at the heart of this latest deal.

Vodafone has played its merger card very carefully here. It notes that the deal will accelerate the rollout of 5G through a larger single network, and specifically that it will make that rollout more financially viable – using the government’s own statements about the two operators to back up its claims.

“The UK Government rightly sees 5G as economically and socially transformative and vital for the UK to become more competitive in an increasingly digital world,” it noted, “and as Ofcom has identified, some UK operators – Vodafone UK and Three UK – lack the necessary scale to earn their cost of capital. By combining our operations, Vodafone UK and Three UK will gain the scale necessary to be able to accelerate the full rollout of 5G in the UK and expand broadband connectivity to rural communities and small businesses.”

This is only the first step in a process that may or may not culminate in a deal; Vodafone said it and Three will make more announcements as negotiations progress.

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The BBC reported on Sept. 26 that a RAC survey showed that the cost of charging an electric vehicle at a public charging post within the U.K. has risen 42 percent since May, to an average of 63.29 pence per kilowatt hour (about 4.74 RMB). Such public charging posts are usually fast-charging models that pay as you go.

For those who do not have a private charging station at home, only public charging equipment for electric car owners, each mile (about 1.6 km) of driving costs 18 pence (about 1.35 RMB) of electricity. A medium-sized car now costs an average of 9 pence ( RMB 1.35) per mile than an electric car, based on current gas prices in the UK and an average of 40 miles (64 km) per gallon of gasoline.

Charging at home is less expensive, but the cost is also rising rapidly. A medium-sized car now costs an average of 9 pence ( RMB 0.67 ) for a mile of electricity. Most electric car owners in the UK choose to charge at home at night.

RAC spokesman Simon Williams said the cost of charging an electric car at home is still lower than the cost of fuel for a petrol or diesel car, but the above figures show that “the gap is narrowing due to the significant rise in electricity costs.”

Since late February, the West has imposed several rounds of tough sanctions on Russia, including restrictions or bans on imports of Russian energy, but the sanctions have also led to soaring prices and a surge in living expenses in European countries that rely on Russian energy.

The British government recently introduced measures related to energy subsidies, companies are expected to enjoy a 50% discount on wholesale energy prices this winter. The RAC has called on the government to reduce the VAT rate on the use of public charging posts from 20 percent to 5 percent, the same rate that applies to charging at home, Williams said.

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