Business

Rishi Sunak has met leaders of the tech industry to discuss the “existential threats” artificial intelligence could pose. The prime minister met CEOs of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic today to share ideas about how to manage the technology as it grows in sophistication. Mr Sunak praised AI as “the defining technology of our time

Microsoft will on Wednesday lodge a formal appeal against British regulators’ decision to block its $75bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, the Call of Duty maker. Sky News understands that the technology behemoth will file its complaint with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) within hours, sparking the next phase of its fight to secure one of

Netflix has expanded its crackdown on password sharing, telling users worldwide their accounts cannot be shared for free outside their households. The streaming service has been looking for new revenue streams amid fears of market saturation, with efforts including limits on password borrowing and a new advert-supported option. On Tuesday, the company said it was

Britain is no longer expected to suffer a recession this year, nor will it have the weakest economic growth in the group of seven leading industrialised economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today. Unveiling a dramatic upgrade to its outlook for Britain, the Fund, which previously predicted Britain would face the worst 2023 of

A growing number of skilled workers from Africa and Asia are moving to Britain to plug crippling staff shortages, according to new figures that reveal the changing picture of migration. Businesses are making use of the new post-Brexit migration system to bring in IT professionals, nurses and accountants. Since January 2021, the new system has

The owner of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook has been slapped with a record fine of €1.2bn (£1.04bn) by the Irish data protection regulator. It’s the biggest fine ever levied for breach of the general data protection regulations (GDPR). Meta has incurred the fine for transferring EU citizens data to the United States for processing and

Meta is expected to face a record fine later over its transfer of Facebook’s European user data to US servers, according to reports. Reuters news agency cited two anonymous sources familiar with the matter as saying that the penalty from EU regulators will be higher than the previous record – a €746m (£647m) fine for

The government is to begin the hunt for a new boss of its flagship trade and cultural promotion campaign after the incumbent decided to step down after two years in charge. Sky News understands that Andy Pike OBE resigned as director of GREAT earlier this month, and will leave the post in September. Mr Pike

Executives including a former director of world motorsport’s governing body and the Nectar loyalty scheme founder Sir Keith Mills are in talks to raise $100m (£80m) to finance the rebirth of A1GP, the motor racing series contested by national teams from around the globe. Sky News has learnt that heavyweight names from the sporting and

The energy price cap is set to remain more than £1,000 higher than the average bill before the COVID pandemic, according to a closely-watched forecast. Ahead of the industry regulator’s determination on the price cap level due next week, energy research specialist Cornwall Insight said it saw the cap for a typical household at the

Tesco chair John Allan is to leave next month after the supermarket giant said allegations over his personal conduct “risk becoming a distraction” to the chain. The UK’s largest retailer said he would be “stepping down” from his role as chair of the board and as a director at the company’s AGM on 16 June.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife lost an average of £500,000 a day over the past year, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. The couple are estimated to be £201m poorer due a fall in the value of Akshata Murty’s stake in her father’s IT firm – but are still worth a reported

Employees are more fearful and distrustful of artificial intelligence in the workplace than their employers – as businesses see cost savings as the main benefit of the technology. A UK-wide survey of attitudes and preparedness for AI, by recruitment giant Hays, found close to a third of employees say they don’t have the right skills

The online party goods supplier founded by the Princess of Wales’s parents has been sold after it failed to avoid collapsing into administration. Sky News has learnt that Party Pieces Holdings, which was launched by Carole and Michael Middleton in 1987, was bought on Thursday by James Sinclair, an entrepreneur. Sources said the sale had

It is hardly surprising that, confronted with the highest levels of food and drink inflation since 1977, some people have concluded that supermarkets are “profiteering”. Those people, apparently, include Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, and the Unite union’s general secretary Sharon Graham. Both have used that incendiary term over the past week, with Sir

Britain has now missed its window of opportunity to build a battery industry, and the government, including Rishi Sunak, is largely to blame, the head of collapsed cell manufacturer Britishvolt has told Sky News. The company was feted as the jewel in Britain’s manufacturing crown – the first home-grown gigafactory, co-financed by the government and

Almost 11 million people are battling to keep up with bills and credit repayments, new figures have revealed. Around one in five adults have found financial commitments to be a heavy burden from the start of the year, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The number of people struggling soared from 7.8 million last

The owner of the largest pipeline system in the North Sea has warned the future of domestic production is in doubt due to the severity of UK windfall taxes. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is Britain’s richest man and whose Ineos business owns the Forties oil and gas pipeline, said the tax rate applied to North

One in five taxpayers will be paying higher-rate income tax by 2027, in what the Institute for Fiscal Studies describes as a “seismic shift” since the 1990s. Higher rates of tax were previously thought of as being for the most wealthy, but the six-year freeze in income tax allowances and thresholds that began last month

Supermarket fuel prices were roughly 5p more expensive per litre in 2022 than pre-pandemic levels, an investigation by the competition watchdog has found. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that factors beyond the invasion of Ukraine have impacted the price customers are paying at the pumps and weak competition has helped drive increases.