Anker’s new earbuds’ call quality is ridiculously goodSoundcore, Anker’s audio brand, has mostly lived in the budget-to-midrange world, but with its new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds, it’s aiming at the big guys. The two new earbuds — the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max — use Anker’s new Thus chip, which has more processing power than previous Soundcore earbuds to try and compete with the chips found in Apple, Sony, and Bose products. And that extra processing power gives the Liberty 5 Pro the best in-call noise canceling I’ve heard in any earbuds.
Previously, the highest-priced Soundcore earbuds (not counting the sleep buds) were the Liberty 4 Pro at $150, but the Liberty 5 Pro are $170 and the Liberty 5 Pro Max are $230. That’s reaching into AirPods Pro 3 territory. Price differences within a product line usually mean different earbud designs, like the open-ear AirPods 4 with ANC versus the sealed AirPods Pro 3. But the Liberty 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max earbuds are exactly the same. They have the same chip, 9.2mm drivers, microphone array, ANC performance, sound profile, battery life, IP55 rating, and overall features. The only difference is the case.
$170
The Good
- Incredible call quality
- Great ANC
- Useful case screen
The Bad
- Default sound profile needs tweaking
The 5 Pro case has an angled 0.96-inch TFT screen on the front that can be used to change settings like ANC, sound profiles, speak-to-chat, and Dolby head tracking. Everything that can be done on the screen can be done in the Soundcore app too, so it’s just preference if you want to take out the case or your phone.
The 1.78-inch AMOLED screen for the 5 Pro Max case is on its sliding top. In addition to the capabilities of the 5 Pro case, you can adjust the screen brightness or change the wallpaper, as well as access a feature that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from its less-expensive sibling: a microphone and an AI note-taking app. You can record audio directly to the case, which has 357MB of storage, then transfer it to your phone where you can generate a transcription and summary in the Soundcore app. (It does require a Soundcore account.)
The file can be edited in the Soundcore app or exported (audio as an MP3, and the transcript and summary as .txt, Markdown, .docx, or PDF file). The transcription can differentiate between different speakers and in my testing I found it to be very accurate, both with who was speaking and with what they were saying. If you’re someone who needs to record classes or meetings regularly it’s a useful feature, especially since it doesn’t require your headphones to be in. But beyond the larger screen, it’s the only major thing that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from the 5 Pro.
The 5 Pro Max’s AI note-taker app can be started and controlled directly from the case screen.
The earbuds look similar to the Bose Ultra Earbuds with a wide, chunky outer body, but they don’t feel that way in the ear. As opposed to the bulbous housing of the Bose, the Liberty 5’s housing slims down, allowing for a better fit while also making them easier to hold onto. They’re comfortable and feel very secure, and I was never concerned they would fall out, even when jumping around.
Out of the box, the Liberty 5 sound profile is on the bassy side, causing vocals — especially male vocals — to sound muddy. Snare hits sound dull and there’s sparkle missing from high-end sounds. By choosing your favorite sound clip tuning from a series of seven examples, you can adjust the earbuds to your preferences (there’s also an 8-band EQ if you’d rather use that). It fixed the issues I had with Soundcore’s default profile. There was still good bass response, but the lower mids were cleaned up and the high mids were boosted a bit, causing the whole sound to open up. Nick Drake’s acoustic guitar in “Pink Moon” shimmers more, as do the piano octaves, and his voice doesn’t get swallowed up by the lower guitar register as his voice descends at the end of the chorus vocal line. Compared to the AirPods Pro 3 my Soundcore profile was still heavier on the bass and didn’t have the same high-end response, but I enjoyed my music listening just as much. The Liberty 5 Pro support LDAC for high-res audio from devices that use the codec.
Adaptive noise-canceling performance is comparable to the AirPods Pro 3, and for $80 less, which is great. The Liberty 5 Pro let in a little bit more midrange than the AirPods, but it’s a very small difference. They ably handle low-end drones and will work well for long flights.
The most remarkable feature of the Liberty 5 Pro series, though, is its voice call capability. I have never heard a pair of earbuds or headphones handle ambient noise on a call this well. One time, my very enthusiastic son sang and yelled while jumping up and down in front of me and the person on the other end of the call heard none of it. During another call, arborists fed tree branches into a wood chipper right outside our open apartment window. The person on the other end had no idea.
I have a friend who’s also an audio reviewer, and I call him regularly to test call clarity on headphones and earbuds. He can’t remember the last time I sounded as natural on a call. And this was while a bunch of traffic, with some emergency vehicles, drove past as I walked the neighborhood. To see how they compare to the AirPods Pro 3, I would switch the earbuds without telling him which I was wearing, and he consistently said the Apple buds sounded muddy and more compressed.
The exceptional call quality of the Liberty 5 Pro caught me off guard.
The Liberty 5 Pro buds have a voice-control mode that responds quickly, although it’s not consistent when there’s conversation around you. I tried toggling between noise cancellation modes while my wife was on a Zoom call in the same room, and if she was talking I’d need to speak uncomfortably loudly for modes to change. What’s interesting — and a bit disconcerting — is that there’s no wake word needed. So instead of listening for just an activation phrase, it’s listening for 11 different possible phrases, including “Play Music,” “Volume Up,” “Reject Call,” and “Transparency Mode.”
For the call clarity alone, the Liberty 5 Pro series is an impressive step forward. If you mainly use your earbuds for calls, they are the best earbuds to get. While the AI recording and transcription on the Liberty 5 Pro Max case is interesting, unless you need it regularly, there’s no reason to spend the extra $60 over the Liberty 5 Pro. They have the same ANC performance, same sound profile — which is really good after using the customization questionnaire — and same incredible call quality. $170 might be more than Soundcore earbuds have been in the past, but the improvement is worth it, and if you’re not concerned with staying in Apple’s, Google’s, or Samsung’s ecosystems, the Liberty 5 Pro are an excellent option.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
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#Ankers #earbuds #call #quality #ridiculously #goodHeadphone Reviews,Reviews,Tech
Soundcore, Anker’s audio brand, has mostly lived in the budget-to-midrange world, but with its new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds, it’s aiming at the big guys. The two new earbuds — the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max — use Anker’s new Thus chip, which has more processing power than previous Soundcore earbuds to try and compete with the chips found in Apple, Sony, and Bose products. And that extra processing power gives the Liberty 5 Pro the best in-call noise canceling I’ve heard in any earbuds.
Previously, the highest-priced Soundcore earbuds (not counting the sleep buds) were the Liberty 4 Pro at $150, but the Liberty 5 Pro are $170 and the Liberty 5 Pro Max are $230. That’s reaching into AirPods Pro 3 territory. Price differences within a product line usually mean different earbud designs, like the open-ear AirPods 4 with ANC versus the sealed AirPods Pro 3. But the Liberty 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max earbuds are exactly the same. They have the same chip, 9.2mm drivers, microphone array, ANC performance, sound profile, battery life, IP55 rating, and overall features. The only difference is the case.
$170
The Good
- Incredible call quality
- Great ANC
- Useful case screen
The Bad
- Default sound profile needs tweaking
The 5 Pro case has an angled 0.96-inch TFT screen on the front that can be used to change settings like ANC, sound profiles, speak-to-chat, and Dolby head tracking. Everything that can be done on the screen can be done in the Soundcore app too, so it’s just preference if you want to take out the case or your phone.
The 1.78-inch AMOLED screen for the 5 Pro Max case is on its sliding top. In addition to the capabilities of the 5 Pro case, you can adjust the screen brightness or change the wallpaper, as well as access a feature that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from its less-expensive sibling: a microphone and an AI note-taking app. You can record audio directly to the case, which has 357MB of storage, then transfer it to your phone where you can generate a transcription and summary in the Soundcore app. (It does require a Soundcore account.)
The file can be edited in the Soundcore app or exported (audio as an MP3, and the transcript and summary as .txt, Markdown, .docx, or PDF file). The transcription can differentiate between different speakers and in my testing I found it to be very accurate, both with who was speaking and with what they were saying. If you’re someone who needs to record classes or meetings regularly it’s a useful feature, especially since it doesn’t require your headphones to be in. But beyond the larger screen, it’s the only major thing that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from the 5 Pro.
The earbuds look similar to the Bose Ultra Earbuds with a wide, chunky outer body, but they don’t feel that way in the ear. As opposed to the bulbous housing of the Bose, the Liberty 5’s housing slims down, allowing for a better fit while also making them easier to hold onto. They’re comfortable and feel very secure, and I was never concerned they would fall out, even when jumping around.
Out of the box, the Liberty 5 sound profile is on the bassy side, causing vocals — especially male vocals — to sound muddy. Snare hits sound dull and there’s sparkle missing from high-end sounds. By choosing your favorite sound clip tuning from a series of seven examples, you can adjust the earbuds to your preferences (there’s also an 8-band EQ if you’d rather use that). It fixed the issues I had with Soundcore’s default profile. There was still good bass response, but the lower mids were cleaned up and the high mids were boosted a bit, causing the whole sound to open up. Nick Drake’s acoustic guitar in “Pink Moon” shimmers more, as do the piano octaves, and his voice doesn’t get swallowed up by the lower guitar register as his voice descends at the end of the chorus vocal line. Compared to the AirPods Pro 3 my Soundcore profile was still heavier on the bass and didn’t have the same high-end response, but I enjoyed my music listening just as much. The Liberty 5 Pro support LDAC for high-res audio from devices that use the codec.
Adaptive noise-canceling performance is comparable to the AirPods Pro 3, and for $80 less, which is great. The Liberty 5 Pro let in a little bit more midrange than the AirPods, but it’s a very small difference. They ably handle low-end drones and will work well for long flights.
The most remarkable feature of the Liberty 5 Pro series, though, is its voice call capability. I have never heard a pair of earbuds or headphones handle ambient noise on a call this well. One time, my very enthusiastic son sang and yelled while jumping up and down in front of me and the person on the other end of the call heard none of it. During another call, arborists fed tree branches into a wood chipper right outside our open apartment window. The person on the other end had no idea.
I have a friend who’s also an audio reviewer, and I call him regularly to test call clarity on headphones and earbuds. He can’t remember the last time I sounded as natural on a call. And this was while a bunch of traffic, with some emergency vehicles, drove past as I walked the neighborhood. To see how they compare to the AirPods Pro 3, I would switch the earbuds without telling him which I was wearing, and he consistently said the Apple buds sounded muddy and more compressed.
The Liberty 5 Pro buds have a voice-control mode that responds quickly, although it’s not consistent when there’s conversation around you. I tried toggling between noise cancellation modes while my wife was on a Zoom call in the same room, and if she was talking I’d need to speak uncomfortably loudly for modes to change. What’s interesting — and a bit disconcerting — is that there’s no wake word needed. So instead of listening for just an activation phrase, it’s listening for 11 different possible phrases, including “Play Music,” “Volume Up,” “Reject Call,” and “Transparency Mode.”
For the call clarity alone, the Liberty 5 Pro series is an impressive step forward. If you mainly use your earbuds for calls, they are the best earbuds to get. While the AI recording and transcription on the Liberty 5 Pro Max case is interesting, unless you need it regularly, there’s no reason to spend the extra $60 over the Liberty 5 Pro. They have the same ANC performance, same sound profile — which is really good after using the customization questionnaire — and same incredible call quality. $170 might be more than Soundcore earbuds have been in the past, but the improvement is worth it, and if you’re not concerned with staying in Apple’s, Google’s, or Samsung’s ecosystems, the Liberty 5 Pro are an excellent option.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
![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.”
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