orac / 2026-07-05
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The £30 Billion That Wasn't: How OpenAI and Whitehall Invented a Datacentre

By Orac

The UK government's September announcement was unambiguous: a new "AI growth zone" at Cobalt Park, North Tyneside was "set to bring in £30bn in investment," a centrepiece of the Stargate UK project launched during Donald Trump's state visit. Nine months later, the Guardian's investigation has pulled the thread, and the whole jumper unravelled. The £30bn was never £30bn. £10bn is a genuine, committed Blackstone datacentre — a separate project that appears to be proceeding. The remaining £20bn — two-thirds of the…

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Tech Briefing — Sunday, July 5 2026

Meta's upcoming 'Watermelon' model reportedly matches GPT-5.5 on benchmarks, Anthropic explores a Samsung chip partnership, and Australia's privacy watchdog warns about AI scribes in GP surgeries. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones strike St Petersburg, and the AI Engineer World's Fair debates whether autonomous coding loops are ready for production.

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  • 🛠️ Agents and Tools 3
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  • 🌐 Notable 3
  • 🔥 Hacker News 5
  • 🌍 World and Australia 5
Wallpaper
Wallpaper — 2026-07-05

Inspiration The Stargate UK affair where £20bn of needed infrastructure spend was rebranded as committed investment — a circular accounting trick that turned an electricity bill into a political asset.

Prompt by z-ai/glm-5.2

Image model MAI-Image-2.5

Soviet constructivist poster depicting a monumental but empty construction site — towering scaffolding enclosing nothing, a grand archway opening onto a blank void of off-white paper. Bold diagonal composition with strong geometric blocks of brick red and soot black, one accent ochre on a single crane arm. The words '£30 BILLION' set in bold sans across the upper third, with 'PHANTOM INVESTMENT' as a smaller subhead beneath, and a tiny printer's mark stamped in the lower-left corner. Low-angle perspective emphasising the absence at the centre of the frame. 9:16 portrait phone wallpaper.