Keir Starmer‘s vaunted £31billion ‘tech prosperity’ deal with the US looks to be on ice amid claims of wrangling over trade terms.
Donald Trump is said to have frozen talks on the pact, which was unveiled with great fanfare during his state visit earlier this year.
The president’s team were unhappy about the UK hitting American tech companies with a ‘digital services tax’, as well as refused to ease food safety rules on imports, according to the New York Times.
British officials have suggested the delay is just part of ‘tough’ negotiations, with government sources denying the negotiations are on hold.
Mr Trump said in September that the tech deal would help the US and UK ‘dominate’ in the world of AI.
It was touted as unlocking massive US investment and co-operation on AI, quantum and other emerging technologies.
Donald Trump is said to have frozen talks on the pact, which was unveiled alongside Keir Starmer during his state visit earlier this year
The president said at the time: ‘This agreement will also help America and our British allies dominate the future of artificial intelligence.’
He pointed out the US is ‘leading China and the world by a lot’ on AI.
Mr Trump said the deal would ‘ensure our countries lead the next great technological revolution side by side’.
He added: ‘We are committed to ensuring the UK has a secure and reliable supply of the best AI hardware and software on earth.’
He said the US and UK are also working on an economic security alliance, adding ‘we’ll have it done very quickly’.
Sir Keir said: ‘We’ve renewed the special relationship for a new era.’
The PM’s official spokesman said today: ‘We remain in active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government…
‘These remain live negotiations, I’m not going to comment in detail.’
He added: ‘Negotiations of this kind are never straight forward, both parties want what’s best for their countries.’
No10 denied that Mr Trump and Starmer signed a ‘nonsense’ deal during the visit.
The tech deal was talked up as boosting joint research programmes to develop models in areas such as biotechnology, precision medicine, cancer, rare diseases and fusion energy.
Nasa and the UK Space Agency were being told to work together on AI models for space exploration and the UK’s AI Security Institute was meant to be tying up with the US Centre for AI Standards and Innovation.
The tech deal was talked up as boosting joint research programmes to develop models in areas such as biotechnology, precision medicine, cancer, rare diseases and fusion energy
America’s top technology companies announced £31 billion of investment, including £22 billion from Microsoft to fund an expansion of Britain’s AI infrastructure and the construction of the country’s largest AI supercomputer.
Google committed £5billion of investment, and Nvidia boss Jensen Huang hailed a ‘big week for AI in the UK’ as the US chip giant agreed to deploy 120,000 advanced processors across the UK to help the British AI sector.
