![\"Kings](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Kings-Cross-Coal-Drops-Yard-e1769016983536.jpg\")
\t\tThe redevelopment of King\u2019s Cross covered 67 acres and now hosts AI giants\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tTuesday 28 April 2026 5:31 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMonday 27 April 2026 6:00 pm\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\tThe redevelopment of King\u2019s Cross covered 67 acres and now hosts AI giants\t<\/p>\n
A description of King\u2019s Cross a little over 20 years ago sounds like something from a Dickens novel. It was \u201ca place of decay, dereliction, crime and filth\u201d \u2013 known for drugs and prostitution. <\/p>\n
Some readers may remember its rave scene but for most people it was a no-go area. <\/p>\n
That opening description comes from Roger Madelin, the former chief executive of Argent (now Related Argent), which drove through one of this country\u2019s most ambitious and successful regeneration schemes. Madelin, speaking to The Times<\/a> at the end of last year, said he was always confident that one day people would bring their children to King\u2019s Cross on a Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n He was right about that, but he surely couldn\u2019t have predicted that it would also become a globally important hub for one of the world\u2019s most groundbreaking and consequential sectors: artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n The tech sector has been drawn to King\u2019s Cross in recent years, with Meta well established and Google finally starting to move people into its mega \u2018landscraper\u2019 in the coming weeks. But it\u2019s the new kids on the block that are turbocharging the reputation<\/a> of this part of London. <\/p>\n \t\tAI is powering demand for London offices<\/p>\n OpenAI and Anthropic \u2013 two of the world\u2019s leading AI labs \u2013 have announced plans for new offices in the area, and they\u2019ll rub shoulders with the likes of autonomous car company Wayve, the AI video firm Synthesia, Scale AI and of course DeepMind, an early tenant, now owned by Google. Now Jeff Bezos\u2019s AI venture, Prometheus, is in talks<\/a> to take nearly 40,000 square feet of King\u2019s Cross office space. <\/p>\n If King\u2019s Cross is becoming the capital\u2019s AI citadel, start-ups are clustering in other parts of the city, too, from Southwark to Stratford. New research by CBRE shows AI firms are set to take up as much as 4m square feet of office space in London by 2033, up from 1.5m square feet today. AI-related tenants currently account for almost 12 per cent of landlord Great Portland Estate\u2019s office portfolio and more than a quarter of its flexible work spaces. <\/p>\n Thanks to London, analysts now talk of the UK as the third most important centre for AI after the US and China. <\/p>\n Beyond the jobs and investment, the technology being developed and deployed here is potentially transformative and constitutes one of the most promising pro-growth bets the UK has made.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n