U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (left), leader of the incumbent Conservatives, and opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer of the Labour Party. The politicians traded barbs in their first head-to-head debate on Tuesday ahead of the July 4 General Election.
Pa Images | Getty Images
LONDON — British technology executives and entrepreneurs want the next government to focus on promoting skills around the development and use of artificial intelligence and growth-oriented fiscal measures.
Brits are set to head to the polls on July 4.
The business community has been calling on the two main political parties to push for economic growth, a regulatory environment that is accommodating to technology innovation and a long-term vision that can cement the U.K.’s position on the world stage.
They say that, whether it’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak or Labour leader Keir Starmer that makes it into Downing Street, the next government is likely to be one that keeps high-growth tech businesses’ interests at heart.
Upskilling in an AI age
One thing U.K. tech executives are pushing for is fostering innovation in artificial intelligence and cultivating citizens’ grasp on AI-centric skills — across multiple generations.
Skills that help us feel better equipped with large language models and other next-generation AI tools rather than losing our grip on these tools and becoming controlled by them should be a key focus of any government, top tech executives told CNBC.
Innovation is heading very quickly towards autonomous AI. We need to have the skills in this country … to be able to adopt and use it in a responsible way, with the right controls and protocols.
Zahra Bahrololoumi
U.K. and Ireland CEO, Salesforce
At Salesforce’s World Tour London, a tech conference where the U.S. enterprise software giant hosts several major customers and partners, promoting growth and prosperity with new technologies like AI was a key theme.
At a press conference on the sidelines of the event — away from the mascots with full-body suits of Einstein and Astro, the raccoon character that guides users around Salesforce’s customer relationship management tools — the firm’s U.K. boss spelled out what she wants from the next administration.
“With any government, I will be specific and I will bang this drum: one in 10 of us feel equipped with AI. Innovation is heading very quickly towards autonomous AI. We need to have the skills in this country … to be able to adopt and use it in a responsible way, with the right controls and protocols,” Zahra Bahrololoumi, Salesforce’s U.K. and Ireland CEO, said in response to a CNBC question.
“Any government appreciates that, most of the major parties do,” she added. “That would be my wish list — if there was one thing just to prioritize, [it should be] digital skills.”
Matthew Houlihan, senior director of government and corporate affairs for U.K. and Europe at U.S. enterprise tech firm Cisco, said the next government should seek to make the country a leader in innovation and emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing.
“It should also be an excellent time to review approaches to essential aspects of the U.K.’s digitising economy such as digital skills, tech adoption support and approaches to security to ensure that the benefits of digital technologies can be felt by as many people across the country as possible,” he added.
Political leanings
Many technology executives remain coy about which candidate will secure their vote come July 4 — but a growing number are beginning to make their political affiliations publicly known.
Last month, dozens of business executives, entrepreneurs, and investors signed an open letter stating their support for Labour in the upcoming election. “We, as leaders and investors in British business, believe it is time for a change,” they said in the letter.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy leader, Angela Rayner, attend an event to launch Labour’s election pledges at The Backstage Centre on May 16, 2024 in Purfleet, United Kingdom.
Leon Neal | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Signatories included several influential names in the world of U.K. tech: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Founders Forum co-founder Jonathan Goodwin, and Atom Bank CEO Mark Mullen.
The writers of the letter say that the U.K. economy has suffered from a decade of stagnation amid a lack of both political stability and a consistent economic strategy.
Britain’s Sunak has said it will “take time” for the general population to “really feel” upward momentum in the economy.
Data released earlier this year showed that U.K. gross domestic product rose by 0.6% between January and March after slumping into a shallow recession in the second half of 2023.
An end to uncertainty
The past four years have seen the U.K. undergo particular adversity and economic instability — from the Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine conflict’s impact on global supply chains, to the rising cost of living for both consumers and businesses.
Add to that the disastrous “mini budget” in September 2022 under Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, what British tech bosses say they are looking for now is stability and certainty.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (L) and Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt (R) during a visit to BAE Systems on March 25, 2024 in Barrow-in-Furness, England.
Danny Lawson | Wpa Pool | Getty Images
“In the last two years, both parties have materially converged in terms of the fact that businesses are important for the country’s growth — business is important, fintech [financial technology] is important, entrepreneurship is important,” Rishi Khosla, CEO of British digital bank OakNorth, told CNBC.
“The strong desire is for whichever party that comes into power to stay the course on that, to make sure that they stay the course on the narrative but also on what they do, whether it’s immigration, whether it’s tax, and they don’t create environments that go against that for populist measures,” Khosla said.
Big on statements, short on detail
One current source of frustration for U.K. tech leaders remains the fact that neither of the major political parties have yet explained how they’ll boost business — let alone the entrepreneurial community and high-growth technology industry.
Tech bosses CNBC spoke with found themselves unable to point to specific policies and plans from either of the main political parties.
British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt recently unveiled a spate of new tax breaks and investments which he said would help to establish the U.K. as a world leader in high-growth industries.
Hunt hinted he’ll introduce new tax cuts if the Conservatives are re-elected, saying in an interview with The Telegraph that the priority will be “business taxes that boost investment,” as well as growth. He has refrained from offering further details on his plans, however.
Labour has previously committed to capping the headline rate of corporation tax at its current 25% rate, and confirmed it will maintain certain tax reliefs including for full expensing and research and development (R&D).
Labour says it will publish a roadmap for business taxation, if and when it is elected.
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025.
I-hwa Cheng | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Friday showered praise on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on a visit to Taiwan, saying that anybody looking to take a stake in the company would be “very smart.”
This comes at a time when the U.S. administration has signaled interest in acquiring stakes in tech companies, especially those in receipt of funding under the U.S. CHIPS Act.
Huang, who said the main purpose of his trip to Taiwan was to thank TSMC for their work on Nvidia’s Rubin, its next-generation AI chip platform, made the remarks in response to a query on Washington looking to take a stake in TSMC.
“Well, first of all, I think TSMC is one of the greatest companies in the history of humanity, and anybody who wants to buy TSMC stock is a very smart person,” he said.
Huang said TSMC was making six new products for Nvidia, including a new central processing unit, a hardware component used for computation, and a new general processing unit, used for advanced computation, especially AI.
Earlier this week, Reuters had reported that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was looking at equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron, TSMC and Samsung.
The 2022 CHIPS Act, passed with bipartisan support under the Joe Biden administration, has seen grants and loans awarded to chipmakers expanding production in the U.S. as part of efforts by Washington to revitalize U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC had been promised $6.6 billion under the act to help build its three cutting-edge chip fabrication plants in Arizona.
Lutnick confirmed in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that the government was in talks to take a 10% equity stake in troubled semiconductor company Intel, and said the administration might consider stakes in other firms as well.
A report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, however, said the government had no plans to seek shares in semiconductor firms that were increasing their U.S. investments, citing a government official. TSMC, in March, announced an expansion of its Investment in the United States to $165 billion.
Separately, Huang said that Nvidia was eager to begin work on “NVIDIA Constellation” — a recently announced new Taiwan office for the company to house its growing Taiwan workforce.
Huang said the company was still working with the local government to resolve some issues to start its construction.
“We have many, many employees here in Taiwan, and we’re growing here in Taiwan because our supply chain is so busy here.”
“We’re working with chip companies, system vendors and system makers all over Taiwan, and everybody is working so hard for us and so we need a lot of engineers to work alongside them,” he added.
Shares in TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, have gained 6.5% so far this year.
Separately, news reports on Friday said Nvidia had asked some of its component suppliers to stop production related to its made-for-China H20 general processing units, after China raised security concerns over the chips.
Last month, Nvidia said it expected to receive an export license for its H20 chips, which had been effectively banned in April. However, Beijing has reportedly placed a freeze on local company’s ability to buy them.
According to Reuters, one of the companies told to pause their work in relation to the H20 chips was Taiwan’s Foxconn — also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry. Foxconn did not respond to an inquiry from CNBC on the matter.
Huang on Friday said that the company had responded to Beijing’s concerns regarding its H20s and was hoping that the issue would be resolved.
Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk
Manuel Orbegozo | Chip Somodevilla | Reuters
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI in early 2025, court filings on Thursday revealed.
The filing is part of a legal case between Musk and OpenAI that was initiated last year. The case is proceeding in a federal court in Northern California, and a judge recently said OpenAI can move ahead with counter claims against Musk, who co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit with Sam Altman and others in 2015.
When Musk floated his proposal to buy OpenAI in February, he was incensed that the company and Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, were pushing to transform the business into a for-profit entity. Altman and Musk, who were longtime friends, have become bitter adversaries since OpenAI’s emergence as a leader in generative AI with billions of dollars in funding from Microsoft.
Musk started xAI in 2023 and was pushing for it to be a direct competitor to OpenAI. Musk later sued OpenAI, alleging a breach of contract, and tried to stop OpenAI from converting to a for-profit company.
In its counter claims, OpenAI has alleged that Musk and xAI’s “sham bid” harmed its business and that Musk has engaged in “harassment” through litigation and attacks on social media and in the press.
As part of its complaint, OpenAI has filed to subpoena Meta for communications between the company, its CEO and Musk about the bid.
In a statement to the court published Thursday, OpenAI said that when Musk and xAI were trying to form a consortium of investors to finance a takeover, they approached Zuckerberg with a letter of intent and asked “about potential financing arrangements or investments.”
Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed the LOI, the filing said.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. Marc Toberoff, Musk’s attorney in the case, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The statement in the filing said that Meta has been “spending heavily to develop its own Al capabilities” and has been “offering pay packages of $100 million or more to leading Al researchers and attempting to poach OpenAI employees.”
Meta has argued that OpenAI’s requests for documents are overly burdensome, and that OpenAI should obtain relevant communications from Musk and xAI, instead.
An Nvidia chip is seen through a magnifying glass in Beijing, China, on August 1, 2025.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Nvidia has asked some of its component suppliers to stop production related to its made-for-China H20 general processing units, as Beijing cracks down on the American chip darling, The Information reported Friday.
The directive comes weeks after the Chinese government told local tech companies to stop buying the chips due to alleged security concerns, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Nvidia reportedly has asked Arizona-based Amkor Technology, which handles the advanced packaging of the company’s H20 chips, and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, which supplies memory for them, to halt production. Samsung and Amkor did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
A separate report from Reuters, citing sources, said that Nvidia had asked Foxconn to suspend work related to the H20s. Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In response to an inquiry from CNBC, an Nvidia spokesperson said “We constantly manage our supply chain to address market conditions.”
The news further throws the return of the H20s to the China market in doubt, after Washington said it would issue export licenses, allowing the chip’s exports to China — whose shipment had effectively been banned in April.
Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China had summoned Nvidia regarding national security concerns with the H20s and had asked the company to provide information on the chips.
Beijing has raised concerns that the chips could be have certain tracking technology or “backdoors,” allowing them to be operated remotely. U.S. lawmakers have proposed legislation that would require AI chips under export regulations to be equipped with location-tracking systems to avoid their illegal shipments.
Speaking to reporters in Taiwan on Friday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged that China had asked questions about security “backdoors,” and that the company had made it clear they do not exist.
“Hopefully the response that we’ve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient. We’re in discussions with them,” he said, adding that Nvidia had been “surprised” by the queries.
“As you know, [Beijing] requested and urged us to secure licenses for the H20s, for some time and I’ve worked quite hard to help them secure the licenses, and so hopefully this will be resolved,” he said.
Nvidia in a statement on Friday said “The market can use the H20 with confidence.”
It added: “As both governments recognize, the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure. China won’t rely on American chips for government operations, just like the U.S. government would not rely on chips from China. However, allowing U.S. chips for beneficial commercial business use is good for everyone.”
Last month, Nvidia had reportedly sent notices to major tech companies and AI developers urging them against the use of the H20s, in what first had appeared as a soft mandate. The Information later reported that Beijing had told some firms, including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, to halt orders of the chips altogether, until the completion of a national security review.
It had been seen as a major win for Nvidia when Huang announced last month that the U.S. government would allow sales of the company’s H20 chips to China.
However, the national security scrutiny the H20s are now facing from the Chinese side, highlights the difficulties of navigating Nvidia’s business through increasing tensions and shifting trade policy between Washington and Beijing.
Chip industry analysts have also said Beijing’s actions appear to reinforce its commitment to its own chip self-sufficiency campaigns and its intention to resist the Trump administration’s plan to keep American AI hardware dominant in China.