By Aggi Cantrill and Caroline Hepker
March 2, 2023, 9:05 AM UTC
The British government’s long-term technology strategy “couldn’t be any worse than it is at the moment,” Arm Ltd.’s co-founder Jamie Urquhart told Bloomberg Radio this week.
Urquhart, who served as the chip design company’s chief operating officer when it went public in 1998 and now works as an adviser, said there was very little continuity to the UK’s approach to semiconductors.
“Even now we are waiting for the government to come out with a semiconductor strategy,” Urquhart said. “There’s very little here in the UK and on the things we are worried about, the Chinese already own them.”
Urquhart’s comments come in the same week that the Softbank-backed company decided not to list on the London Stock Exchange. Instead Arm will focus on a sole listing in New York later this year, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. This is a blow to UK politicians who were lobbying the home-grown technology giant ahead of its initial public offering.
This is a perfect story for this sub, nice and miserable and negative. Upvote party
UK politicians are the kind of people that loudly declare they’re pivoting the entire economy to Bitcoin the day after the entire sector crashes and burns.
What strategy?
I thought the strategy was to ban encryption and get rid of all the algorithms to stop people from downstreaming movies?
Don’t tell them that, their incompetence will view it as a challenge
Remember this article when you get the media mouth pieces talking about Brexit advantages of deregulation etc. We had a golden opportunity with ARM and we sat on it for nearly two decades and have never protected any of it. When they talk about deregulation or advantages due to speedy licensing they are talking about removing worker rights or in the one case of gene editing they are on about the ability to be more agile in licensing but once again they miss the point that these companies need regulatory alliances and protections which make the so called advantage worthless.
The gov has proved they’re fucking morons over the past who knows how long anymore
Anyone who’s been paying attention should realize that Tory Governments since Thatcher’s time not only don’t have a tech strategy but are as hostile to one as they are to all other government interference in the wisdom of the free market. They either don’t see or ignore the differences in the UK’s national interest and that of corporations, often foreign or transnational. See also “leaving food policy to Tesco”.
Probably not a good idea to say that out loud… those fuckers might view it as a challenge and come up with something worse!
Our politicians only have a strong will to bring in legislation for stupid and useless things, like stopping protests and not doing enough about energy supply or prices, cost of living, the NHS, schools, crap roads, and punishing instead people who drive to work because public transport may be 3x journey time and and 5 x as expensive!.
Also crazy unlimited amounts of money for meddling in other peoples countries!.
“Strategy”….. his mistake is assuming they have one.
It still boils my piss that the UK frittered away a major chip manufacturer just to try and sell Brexit as a win.
Is there at least one thing that’s good in the uk what the fuck happened ever since the eighties the whole place has just been on a downward spiral that just keeps getting faster.
What is wrong with shoving tax payer money into the Tories mates pocket exactly? The country has voted for it for a decade so it must be a great plan…like Brexit…how is that going again, oh right it means Brexit, so exactly as expected.
The UK is run by a morally corrupt aristocracy in partnership with an elite who made their fortunes by rewarding only themselves and not their workers.. for which they’re praised and rewarded with hereditary influence for generations.
They’re way too old school to care about tech, and too selfish to care about investing in the future of the country.
“When I said let the free market decide, what I meant to say was let the free market decide as long as it only negatively affects the populace!” -some Tory
Any time someone says it cannot get any worse than what it currently is, it gets substantially worse. Brexit is the prime example of this; poor areas voting against their own interest because a group of rich people convinced them they couldn’t fall any further
You’re not going to get a chip strategy when you don’t have technically capable people in government either as politicians or in the civil service.
Why would an experienced hire from Industry jump to the Civil Service when they’d have to relocate to London and take a £20k pay cut. If they’re in London already, the pay cut would be even bigger.
What he’s not telling you is that Arm has been chronically mismanaged for many years and has itself squandered opportunity after opportunity. Classic British management.
This government wants all the power for the sake of powers sake and ego wanking. They haven’t got a clue what to actually do with it. The ineptitude and any lack of strategy or productivity is mind blowing.
What strategy?
Or do we just mean the strategy of 0 government investment, then sell to america?
Yeah I feel expertly qualified to talk on this as a systems programmer, the UK is literally not worth saving at this point from most of the general public (yea, redditors too) to the politicians.
ARM SHOULD have been the power house of the computing world, and yet it got dumpsters and ran through. It should be been protected with state secrecy laws just like the Americans did. But it wasn’t.
The same thing happened with Manchesters graphene sheet batteries, Sheffield’s recycled plastic concrete, Yorks atomic clocks.
I’m so done with this, and they all wonder why STEM experts and just leaving for the US, Scandinavia and Dubai.
OLE engineers get paid half here vs Scandinavia, programmers with not even a third my and my colleges ability (assembly (effectively ARM) vs Java is like changing oil vs building a helicopter) earn about 4 times as much in the US.
Engineer isn’t even a protected term here, im sorry but someone that fixes a boiler isn’t an engineer.
Average people and government failed engineers and scientists, this is the result.
Arm : The UK’s tech strategy could not be any worse
23 comments
By Aggi Cantrill and Caroline Hepker
March 2, 2023, 9:05 AM UTC
The British government’s long-term technology strategy “couldn’t be any worse than it is at the moment,” Arm Ltd.’s co-founder Jamie Urquhart told Bloomberg Radio this week.
Urquhart, who served as the chip design company’s chief operating officer when it went public in 1998 and now works as an adviser, said there was very little continuity to the UK’s approach to semiconductors.
“Even now we are waiting for the government to come out with a semiconductor strategy,” Urquhart said. “There’s very little here in the UK and on the things we are worried about, the Chinese already own them.”
Urquhart’s comments come in the same week that the Softbank-backed company decided not to list on the London Stock Exchange. Instead Arm will focus on a sole listing in New York later this year, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. This is a blow to UK politicians who were lobbying the home-grown technology giant ahead of its initial public offering.
This is a perfect story for this sub, nice and miserable and negative. Upvote party
UK politicians are the kind of people that loudly declare they’re pivoting the entire economy to Bitcoin the day after the entire sector crashes and burns.
What strategy?
I thought the strategy was to ban encryption and get rid of all the algorithms to stop people from downstreaming movies?
Don’t tell them that, their incompetence will view it as a challenge
Remember this article when you get the media mouth pieces talking about Brexit advantages of deregulation etc. We had a golden opportunity with ARM and we sat on it for nearly two decades and have never protected any of it. When they talk about deregulation or advantages due to speedy licensing they are talking about removing worker rights or in the one case of gene editing they are on about the ability to be more agile in licensing but once again they miss the point that these companies need regulatory alliances and protections which make the so called advantage worthless.
The gov has proved they’re fucking morons over the past who knows how long anymore
Anyone who’s been paying attention should realize that Tory Governments since Thatcher’s time not only don’t have a tech strategy but are as hostile to one as they are to all other government interference in the wisdom of the free market. They either don’t see or ignore the differences in the UK’s national interest and that of corporations, often foreign or transnational. See also “leaving food policy to Tesco”.
Probably not a good idea to say that out loud… those fuckers might view it as a challenge and come up with something worse!
Our politicians only have a strong will to bring in legislation for stupid and useless things, like stopping protests and not doing enough about energy supply or prices, cost of living, the NHS, schools, crap roads, and punishing instead people who drive to work because public transport may be 3x journey time and and 5 x as expensive!.
Also crazy unlimited amounts of money for meddling in other peoples countries!.
“Strategy”….. his mistake is assuming they have one.
It still boils my piss that the UK frittered away a major chip manufacturer just to try and sell Brexit as a win.
Is there at least one thing that’s good in the uk what the fuck happened ever since the eighties the whole place has just been on a downward spiral that just keeps getting faster.
What is wrong with shoving tax payer money into the Tories mates pocket exactly? The country has voted for it for a decade so it must be a great plan…like Brexit…how is that going again, oh right it means Brexit, so exactly as expected.
The UK is run by a morally corrupt aristocracy in partnership with an elite who made their fortunes by rewarding only themselves and not their workers.. for which they’re praised and rewarded with hereditary influence for generations.
They’re way too old school to care about tech, and too selfish to care about investing in the future of the country.
“When I said let the free market decide, what I meant to say was let the free market decide as long as it only negatively affects the populace!” -some Tory
Any time someone says it cannot get any worse than what it currently is, it gets substantially worse. Brexit is the prime example of this; poor areas voting against their own interest because a group of rich people convinced them they couldn’t fall any further
You’re not going to get a chip strategy when you don’t have technically capable people in government either as politicians or in the civil service.
Why would an experienced hire from Industry jump to the Civil Service when they’d have to relocate to London and take a £20k pay cut. If they’re in London already, the pay cut would be even bigger.
What he’s not telling you is that Arm has been chronically mismanaged for many years and has itself squandered opportunity after opportunity. Classic British management.
This government wants all the power for the sake of powers sake and ego wanking. They haven’t got a clue what to actually do with it. The ineptitude and any lack of strategy or productivity is mind blowing.
What strategy?
Or do we just mean the strategy of 0 government investment, then sell to america?
Yeah I feel expertly qualified to talk on this as a systems programmer, the UK is literally not worth saving at this point from most of the general public (yea, redditors too) to the politicians.
ARM SHOULD have been the power house of the computing world, and yet it got dumpsters and ran through. It should be been protected with state secrecy laws just like the Americans did. But it wasn’t.
The same thing happened with Manchesters graphene sheet batteries, Sheffield’s recycled plastic concrete, Yorks atomic clocks.
I’m so done with this, and they all wonder why STEM experts and just leaving for the US, Scandinavia and Dubai.
OLE engineers get paid half here vs Scandinavia, programmers with not even a third my and my colleges ability (assembly (effectively ARM) vs Java is like changing oil vs building a helicopter) earn about 4 times as much in the US.
Engineer isn’t even a protected term here, im sorry but someone that fixes a boiler isn’t an engineer.
Average people and government failed engineers and scientists, this is the result.
Arm : The UK’s tech strategy could not be any worse
UK Gov : *Challenge accepted!*