James Wise

Start here. Scale here. Win Everywhere.

Today we announced a major milestone: @prior_labs has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by @SAP, scaling Prior Labs to become the next frontier AI lab for structured data. 🧵

SAP have just announced their intent to acquire Prior Labs - in one of Germany’s biggest ever venture outcomes. It’s been a delight working with them over the last 18 months, from founding to exit. Far more importantly, this is a huge investment in what will be Germany’s most important frontier AI lab, bringing together Prior Lab’s exceptional team and technology with SAP’s global expertise and resources. You can read more about their plans going forward below. Huge thanks to everyone @prior_labs, from us all @balderton.

@drnovac @balderton 🫡

nice 14 months outcome for @balderton which led their 9m preseed

@WoodstockComp @thomasforth I’m not sure how relevant it is to the article above but what on earth! DARPA funds huge amounts of research in Europe and there are many US-Govt backed investment firms investing in European frontier technology. Smartly so from their perspective.

@Jameswise @thomasforth The problem is they're using our taxes for foreign enterprises? You don't see DARPA making bets in Europe. Why don't we sent international aid to Monaco while we're at it? 🥴

Big scoop 😉 in The Guardian on how Aria, the UK's newest science and innovation funding body is spending £50m outside of the UK, mostly in the USA. theguardian.com/technology/202…

@thomasforth Regional funding for research is certainly worthy of lots more coverage. Not sure that the single line on it in this article justifies the rest of the nonsense they decided to publish.

@Jameswise I think it's a bit awkward that Aria seems to have spent more outside the UK than outside South East England. I don't have the resources to check to where money flows, and I've just written that I find the Guardians piece a bit sensational. Link to my full blog in the thread.

@morgan_jamz @LukeJohnsonRCP @emmacduncan No DC - DB schemes had more flexibility to do this but following the changes over a decade ago now can’t as much as they are phasing out.

@Jameswise @LukeJohnsonRCP @emmacduncan Assume you mean DB regulation?

There are a few candidates over the last decade in the UK - but I think DC pension regulation has to be the winner for lowest political salience to highest economic damage. The second-order effects of this are just devastating. From @emmacduncan’s great column in The Times today (£)

As a fellow Camden resident - I would strongly encourage anyone going to the polls next week to read this thread.

The true Sovereign, and AI.

The central question for our prosperity and our security is the question of our AI capability. Terrific to hear @leicesterliz make a clear-eyed pitch for how the UK will navigate this geopolitical and technological moment!

As @WilliamJHague has trailed in his column, the Secretary of State, @leicesterliz’s speech today is going to echo for years to come. As he suggests, technology policy is foreign policy. Defining our uniquely British tech policy is amongst the most important work of our time. thetimes.com/article/62d015…

@pippalamb @UKSovereignAI @IneffableLabs 🫡

@UKSovereignAI @IneffableLabs Lets go! 🇬🇧🚀

🇬🇧 Sovereign AI is backing @IneffableLabs 🇬🇧 We can announce Sovereign AI has invested in Ineffable. Led by David Silver, Ineffable is building learning systems that can go beyond the limits of human knowledge, learning continuously to push the frontiers of science and technology.

There's been a huge amount of good news this week for the UK's AI infrastructure base - including energy, automated labs and data centers. Hope this gets as much coverage as the OpenAI datacenter 'pause' did.....

@danfaggella We’d be happy to host @balderton. Tea and crumpets on us old chap.

*Worthy Successor London* is probably happening late May or early June, I don't know exactly yet but you can guarantee it'll be the highest-density meeting of hardcore AGI-thinking policy, tech, and big lab people ever to gather in one room (probs will have tea/crumpets too?)

Good profile of one of the most important, ( and hard-working ) officials in Government, Jade Leung. telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/2… Worth a read (£)

UK Security Minister: “my message to the frontier AI companies is this: true responsibility goes beyond releasing enterprise software. We want you to work with us directly.” … “The recent leap in frontier models means agentic AI has arrived. The frontier labs driving this innovation are pushing the boundaries of human capability.  We are already seeing them bring new commercial defensive tools to the market to help mitigate these emerging risks. For the broader economy, these tools are highly valuable. But let me be clear: protecting Critical National Infrastructure requires a fundamentally different approach. We will not secure the central pillars of the UK state simply by purchasing off-the-shelf vendor solutions. We need a new model of collaboration, and it is time to set a higher standard for responsible action.”

Cool list, you are what you read. ( which is why you should never read the comment section )