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Trying to get a head start on your holiday shopping? Amazon’s fourth annual Prime Big Deal Days, aka October Prime Day, runs through 11:59 p.m. PT on Oct. 8, and we’ve spotted record-low prices across popular tech categories.
Over the course of the sale, it’s worth mapping out what gifts you need to buy or which household goods need restocking. We’ll be updating this guide hourly as the sale runs its course, so keep checking back for the best October Prime Day deals.
Note: Deals marked with a 🔥 denote an all-time low price. Follow Mashable’s Prime Big Deal Days live blog and keep checking back for the latest discounts, stock alerts, and deal drops. (For even more updates, follow the live blogs of our friends at CNET, PCMag, ZDNET, and Lifehacker.)
October Prime Day deals available now
Here’s a quick look at some of Amazon’s biggest discounts available on the second day (Oct. 8) of Prime Big Deal Days 2025:
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Up to 45% off Bose headphones and speakers
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Up to 30% off MacBooks, AirPods, and AirTags
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Up to 55% off TVs from Samsung, TCL, and Hisense
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Up to 40% off LG and Samsung monitors
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Up to 50% off on select Amazon devices, including Kindle e-readers and Echo devices
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Up to 65% off chargers and power banks from Anker
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Up to 50% off vacuums from Shark, iRobot, and Roborock
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One free grocery item on a Same-Day order at eligible locations
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Prime members can use Grubhub+ to get $10 off orders of $20 or more
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Prime members receive triple points on Kindle store purchases during Prime Big Deal Days
Best Apple deal
Why we picked this
“Apple’s M4 MacBook Air is a sleek speed demon: In our CPU benchmark, it outperformed 89% of the models in our laptop testing database. It doesn’t look all that different from older MacBooks with M-something chips, but its upgraded 12MP Center Stage camera was a welcome upgrade to our reviewer.
I think the 15-inch model is the best pick for most people, and right now, Amazon has the 256GB base configuration on sale for just $979 in sky blue (normally $1,199). That’s a new record low — it was $20 pricier on the first day of Prime Big Deal Days. If it sells out there, Best Buy’s managed to match it.” — Haley Henschel, Senior Shopping Reporter
Read Mashable’s full review of the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M4).
AirPods deals
MacBook deals
-
Apple MacBook Air, 13-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $799
$999(save $200) 🔥 -
Apple MacBook Pro, 14-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,399
$1,599 -
Apple MacBook Pro, 16-inch (M4 Pro, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $2,249
$2,499(save $250) -
Apple MacBook Pro, 14-inch (M4 Max, 36GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $2,869
$3,199(save $330) -
Apple MacBook Pro, 16-inch (M4 Max, 36GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $3,099
$3,499(save $400)
Apple Watch deals
iPad deals
-
Apple iPad, 11-inch (A16, WiFi, 128GB) — $279
$349(save $70) 🔥 -
Apple iPad mini (A17 Pro, WiFi, 128GB) — $379
$499(save $120) 🔥 -
Apple iPad, 11-inch (A16, WiFi + cellular, 128GB) — $429
$499(save $120) 🔥 -
Apple iPad Air, 11-inch (M3, WiFi, 128GB) — $449
$599(save $150) -
Apple iPad Air, 11-inch (M3, WiFi + cellular, 128GB) — $599
$749(save $150) -
Apple iPad Air, 13-inch (M3, WiFi, 128GB) — $649
$799(save $150) -
Apple iPad Air, 13-inch (M3, WiFi + cellular, 128GB) — $799
$949(save $150) -
Apple iPad Pro, 11-inch (M4, WiFi, 256GB) — $899
$999(save $100) -
Apple iPad Pro, 11-inch (M4, WiFi + cellular, 256GB) — $1,099
$1,199(save $100) -
Apple iPad Pro, 13-inch (M4, WiFi, 256GB) — $1,099
$1,299(save $200) -
Apple iPad Pro, 13-inch (M4, WiFi + cellular, 256GB) — $1,299
$1,499(save $200)
More Apple deals
Best headphones and earbuds deal
Why we picked this
“The first-generation QuietComfort Ultras are our current favorite noise-canceling headphones and some of the comfiest cans we’ve ever tried. Bose recently announced their successors ($449), which offer USB-C audio support, adjustable ANC, and a better battery life, but the originals remain a competitive buy at their current price of $299 (or $150 less) in the limited-edition dark plum colorway.” — Haley Henschel, Senior Shopping Reporter
Read Mashable’s full review of the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones.
More headphones and earbuds deals
Prime Day Bluetooth speaker deals
Best Windows laptop deal
Why we like it
“The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 with a Snapdragon X Elite chip is our favorite Windows laptop for most people. It’s beautiful, it’s about as fast as an M4 MacBook Air, and it lasts for nearly 23 hours on a single charge — that’s two longer than the M4 Pro-powered MacBook Pro, the longest-lasting MacBook we’ve tried. The dune variant with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage is marked down to $919.99 for Prime Big Deal Days (or 34% off) — its best price ever.” — Haley Henschel, Senior Shopping Reporter
Read Mashable’s full review of the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.
More Windows laptop deals
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Asus Vivobook 16 (AMD Ryzen AI 5 340, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $616.99
$799.99(save $183) -
Microsoft Surface Laptop, 13-inch (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $649.99
$899.99(save $250) 🔥 -
Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, 13.8-inch (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $879.99
$1,199.99(save $320) -
Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, 15-inch (Snapdragon X Elite, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,459.99
$2,099.99(save $650) 🔥
2-in-1 laptop deals
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Microsoft Surface Pro 11, 12-inch (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $699.99
$799.99(save $100) 🔥 -
Microsoft Surface Pro 11, 13-inch (Snapdragon X Elite, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $899.99
$1,399.99(save $400) 🔥 -
LG gram Pro 2in1 16 (Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) — $2,094.99
$2,549.99(save $455) 🔥
Gaming laptop deals
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Lenovo LOQ (Intel Core i7-13650HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050, 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $779.99
$1,179.99(save $400) 🔥 -
Acer Nitro V (Intel Core i7-13620H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $849.99
$949.99(save $100) -
Acer Nitro V 16S AI (AMD Ryzen 7 260, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,169.99
$1,299.99(save $130) 🔥 -
Asus ROG Strix G16 (Intel Core i7-14650HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,199.99
$1,499.99(save $100) 🔥 -
Asus ROG Strix G16 (Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $2,399.99
$2,899.99(save $500) 🔥 -
Asus ROG Strix G16 (Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $2,099.99
$2,399.99(save $300) 🔥
Best TV deal
Why we like it
“This 75-inch Insignia TV just hit a new all-time low of $399.99, which is a 38% savings. If you’ve never had a QLED TV before, it’s a great low-stakes opportunity to upgrade. As a budget QLED, you can’t expect this model to stun in HDR like a premium Samsung QLED would. But compared to your old LED TV, you’ll quickly see the difference those quantum dots are making — they’ll especially pop when watching football in the daytime.” — Leah Stodart, Senior Shopping Reporter
More TV deals
42-inch to 50-inch TV deals
55-inch TV deals
65-inch and 70-inch TV deals
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Hisense 65-inch E6 Cinema Series QLED 4K TV — $369.99
$549.99(save $180) 🔥 -
LG 65-inch C5 OLED 4K TV — $1,387.99
$2,696.99(save $1,309) 🔥 -
Samsung 65-inch The Frame 4K QLED TV (2024 model) — $1,197.96
$1,997.99(save $800.03) 🔥 -
Samsung 65-inch S90F OLED TV (2025 model) — $1,527.99
$1,997.99(save $470) 🔥 -
Sony 65-inch A95K QD-OLED 4K TV — $2,399
$3,499.99(save $1,100.99) 🔥 -
Sony 65-inch Bravia 8 II QD OLED 4K TV — $2,788 $3,499.99 (save $711.99) 🔥
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Insignia 70-inch F50 Series 4K Fire TV — $329
$499(save $170) 🔥
75-inch and 77-inch TV deals
85-inch and up TV deals
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Hisense 85-inch QD7 QLED 4K TV — $879.99
$1,299.99(save $420) -
TCL 85-inch QM6K QLED 4K TV — $997
$1,499.99(save $502.99) -
Hisense 85-inch U7 QLED 4K TV (2025 model) — $1,497
$2,499.99(save $1,003) 🔥 -
Hisense 85-inch Canvas QLED 4K TV — $1,997.99
$2,297.99(save $300) -
Hisense 85-inch U8 Mini LED QLED 4K TV (2025 model) — $2,197.99
$3,498(save $1,300.01) 🔥 -
Sony 85-inch Bravia 9 Mini LED QLED 4K TV — $3,998
$4,799.99(save $801.99) 🔥 -
Hisense 100-inch E6 Cinema Series QLED 4K TV — $1,659.99
$2,699.99(save $950) 🔥
Best Kindle deal
Why we like it
“The biggest perk to the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is its ad-free lock screen. Usually, I don’t think it’s worth the extra money, but with this record discount, I think it’s an incredible value. For $149.99, you’ll enjoy auto-adjusting brightness, 12 weeks of battery, wireless charging, and 32GB of storage.” — Samantha Mangino, Shopping Reporter
Read Mashable’s full review of the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition.
More Kindle deals
Best Amazon device deal
Why we picked this
“There’s no way around it: A shit ton of people are going to buy AirPods this October Prime Day. But for those who aren’t married to Apple’s earbuds (or how often they seem to break), just know that the latest version of Amazon’s Echo Buds with ANC are just $34.99 after a 71% discount. That beats their Prime Day price from July by $10, and you could get four pairs of Echo Buds for less than the $169.99 sale price of the AirPods Pro 2.” — Leah Stodart, Senior Shopping Reporter
More Amazon device deals
Fire tablet deals
Echo deals
Fire TV deals
Blink home security deals
Other Amazon device deals
Best robot vacuum deal
Why we picked this
“When it comes to robot vacuums, I always turn to Mashable’s in-house robot vacuum expert, Leah Stodart. When I asked her about these deals, she pointed out that iRobot marked down the Roomba Plus 405 to $379.99 (a new record low), making it one of the most affordable combo robot vacuums and mops. Plus, its dock not only empties the vacuum, but even cleans the mopping pads for a truly hands-free experience.” — Samantha Mangino, Shopping Reporter
More robot vacuum deals
More robot vacuum and mop deals
Best smartwatch deals
Why we picked this
“The Garmin vívoactive 5 was recently replaced as the newest model by the vívoactive 6, but the 5 still holds a special place in our hearts. This is what we’d call a perfect all-rounder fitness tracker, perfect for tracking long runs and cycles while also still having a great range of lifestyle features like sleep tracking, stress levels, and body battery. It’s also a vast improvement over the vívoactive 4, and even has a bright AMOLED display, making it appear even more high-tech.” — Lois Mackenzie, Mashable contributor
Mashable Deals
More smartwatch deals
Best kitchen deal
Why we picked this
“Ninja makes some of our favorite kitchen appliances, and the Foodi line is a standout in the brand’s countertop lineup. This indoor grill lets you easily make burgers, steaks, chops, and other meat dishes when you don’t feel like grilling, and it comes with a built-in meat thermometer.” — Timothy Beck Werth, Tech Editor
More kitchen deals
Best home essentials deal
“Prime Day sales are the perfect time to restock your home or apartment with essentials like paper towels, cleaning products, batteries, and health necessities. An always-reliable Prime Day deal is Crest Whitestrips, and once again, they’re on a great discount before we head into October’s sale. The 22-treatment set has 44 strips in total, and it’s on sale for $29.99, which works out to a sweet 35% discount compared to the usual price of $45.99. Plus, this deal qualifies for Proctor and Gamble’s buy two, get $5 off coupon deal, so if you snag two boxes of Whitestrips, you’ll be saving even more.” — Lauren Allain, Mashable contributor
More essentials deals
Best Lego deal
Why we like it
“For those looking to get a head start on holiday shopping, Lego’s advent calendars are a very fun pick-up. It’s even better when they can be found on sale. Right now, the 2025 Lego Minecraft Advent Calendar is down to its best price at Amazon, dropping from $44.99 to $38.49. If you’re looking to grab one for the kids to enjoy over the holidays, now is a great time to jump on it.” — Hannah Hoolihan, Mashable contributor
More Lego deals
Best beauty deal
Why we like it
“If you were using Prime Day as an excuse to finally buy the Shark CryoGlow or Shark FlexFusion, don’t stress yourself out by choosing between them. Simply get both. Amazon has revived its July Prime Day bundle featuring the Shark CryoGlow red light mask and Shark FlexFusion hair styler, getting you both for $499.99. That’s essentially scoring the unique wet and dry hair styler and the best red light mask on the market for $249.99 each — they regularly cost $349.99 each when purchased separately.” — Leah Stodart, Senior Shopping Reporter
More beauty deals
Best outdoor deal
Why we like it
“A portable power station is one of the most useful items you can buy for your home this year. They’ve seen major advancements in both battery technology and user-friendliness recently, and the Anker Solix C1000 portable power station is a standout model. It’s an ideal combination of power (1,056Wh), plenty of ports, and it’s on sale for Prime Day for $379, which is the lowest price Amazon has ever offered.” — Lauren Allain, Mashable contributor
Read Mashable’s full review of the Anker Solix C1000.
More portable power station deals
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EcoFlow Trail 300 DC — $139
$538(save $399) + get a free EcoFlow USB-C charger 🔥 -
Anker Solix C300 DC — $149.99
$249.99(save $100) -
Jackery Explorer 300 — $159
$259(save $100) 🔥 -
Jackery Explorer 240 v2 — $174
$249(save $75) 🔥 -
Bluetti Elite 30 V2 — $189
$249(save $60) 🔥 -
Anker Solix PowerHouse 535 — $299
$499.99(save $200.99) 🔥 -
Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 — $349
$799(save $450) 🔥 -
EcoFlow River 2 and River 3 Plus — $369
$538(save $169) -
Anker Solix C800 Plus — $399
$649(save $250) 🔥 -
EcoFlow Delta 3 — $483
$699(save $216) 🔥 -
Bluetti AC180 Solar Generator with 200W Solar Panel — $645.03
$1,099🔥 -
Jackery Explorer 2000 v2 — $699
$1,499(save $800) 🔥 -
Bluetti AC200L — $699
$1,599(save $1,300) 🔥 -
Anker Solix F2000 — $799
$1,999(save $1,050) 🔥 -
Anker Solix C1000 with 400W Solar Panel — $849
$1,998(save $1,149) 🔥 -
EcoFlow Delta 2 Max + free 45W solar panel — $899
$1,699(save $800) 🔥 -
Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus — $1,499
$1,799(save $300) 🔥 -
Bluetti Apex 300 — $1,499
$2,399(save $900) 🔥
Cooler deals
Outdoor cooking deals
Tent deals
More outdoor deals
Best creator-approved deal
Why we like it
The DJI Mic Mini is one of the best upgrades for content creators looking to up their audio game — with two transmitters, a receiver with level controls, a charging case, companion app, clip magnets, and four windscreens, this pocket mic comes with all the essentials — and it sounds great. Mashable’s Bethany Allard wrote with her experience using the mic that it “offers a lot of versatility, and for a great value. That makes it a solid option for making vlogs and TikToks, and for anyone who feels less than confident with their tech skills — once I plugged the receiver into my phone, the mics connected easily and started working with the camera app automatically.”
Read more about the DJI Mic Mini.
More creator-approved deals
Live
Latest Updates
59 minutes ago | October 8, 2025
To keep things fresh, Amazon drops various lighting deals throughout its shopping events. So, while you have until the end of the day to shop most of the Prime Big Deal Days sales, these discounts are on a ticking clock:
1 hour ago | October 8, 2025
As of this writing, the Beats Pill x Kim Kardashian speaker is out of stock at Amazon. Interestingly, the used versions of the speaker are actually priced higher than the new speaker was on sale.
1 hour ago | October 8, 2025
Big sales like this are prime time (get it?!) for all of us to stock up on the essentials — but especially parents. Here are our top picks.
Diapers
Wipes
2 hours ago | October 8, 2025
Amazon loves its perks, and we’re not mad about it. Prime members already get access to Grubhub+ for a year when they sign up, unlocking $0 delivery fees. And on Oct. 8, you can get an exclusive deal: Get $10 off any order of $20+ using the promo code DEALS10.
Please note this offer is only valid today.
2 hours ago | October 8, 2025
Our favorite robot vacuum deal of Prime Big Deal Days has gotten $20 cheaper on day two of the sale. Snag the iRobot Roomba Plus 405 Combo + AutoWash Dock for its lowest-ever price of $379.99, or a whopping 53% off. For comparison’s sake, it’s stuck at $499.99 at Best Buy and on iRobot’s own website.
2 hours ago | October 8, 2025
Heads up: Insignia’s $399.99 75-inch Insignia QLED TV, our top TV deal this Prime Day, might be unavailable depending on your location. If that’s the case, we recommend Hisense’s 65-inch E6 Cinema Series QLED 4K Fire TV as an alternative for big-screen budget shoppers. It’s currently marked down to $369.99, or $180 off — a record low.
3 hours ago | October 8, 2025
When our shopping reporters spot a good deal, they don’t just take Amazon’s word for it. We also use the price-tracking tool CamelCamelCamel to check that product’s price history.
Simply copy a product’s Amazon URL and paste it into CamelCamelCamel’s search bar to produce a chart showing its compete price history over the years. You’ll find out whether the product you’re eyeing is sitting at an unmissable all-time low, or if its current “sale price” is actually its everyday price tag.
3 hours ago | October 8, 2025
This might be one of our favorite Prime Day deals so far. The Beats Pill x Kim Kardashian Bluetooth Speaker started Prime Day with a discount to $79.99, but it’s now dropped all the way to $49.99. According to CamelCamelCamel, that beats its lowest price ever by nearly $50. We almost never say this, but it feels like Amazon is trying to give these speakers away.
4 hours ago | October 8, 2025
A new all-time low on our favorite Windows laptop? Yes please. The 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 with a peppy Snapdragon X Elite processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage is only $919.99 if you go for the dune color. (Meanwhile, it’s $130 pricier at Best Buy during its Techtober Sale.) Per our reviewer, this machine has “nearly 23 hours of battery life and MacBook-beating performance.”
4 hours ago | October 8, 2025
The original Bose QuietComfort Ultra are some of the comfiest headphones we’ve ever tried, and their limited-edition deep plum variant is still in stock at $299 (or $130 off list price). A Lightning Deal that popped up in the first half of Prime Big Deal Days briefly brought them down to $984.99, but this is still an great price on a great pair of noise-cancelling cans. All of the other colors are $30 pricier!
5 hours ago | October 8, 2025
In an October Prime Day miracle, the 15-inch M4 Apple MacBook Air — our favorite MacBook for most people — has dipped an extra $20 since yesterday. The base model is usually priced at $1,199, but you’ll pay $979. That’s an unprecedented 18% savings. Best Buy is matching it, too.
So far, this is the only Apple gadget we’ve encountered that’s gotten cheaper for the second half of Prime Big Deal Days.
7 hours ago | October 8, 2025
We’re back for Day 2 of the Amazon Big Deal Days sale. We’ve refreshed our list with the latest and greatest deals available on the site right now.
Source link
#Amazon #October #Prime #Day #top #deals #shop
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://i0.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680&ssl=1 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
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