Comic-Con International is underway in San Diego, and fans of geeky film and TV are getting fed.
SEE ALSO:
The 10 best TV shows of 2025 (so far), and where to stream them
Between new trailers, exclusive clips, and first look images, there’s an immense amount of nerdy news to take in. But don’t feel overwhelmed: We’ve got you covered. We’ve rounded up the biggest film and TV announcements below, so you can get up to speed on everything from new Alien and Predator titles to upcoming shows like Gen V and Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Let’s get into it.
Robert Kirkman updated fans on Invincible Season 4.
Invincible creator Robert Kirkman unveiled key information about two major villains fans can expect to see in Invincible Season 4. First, he announced that The Americans star Matthew Rhys will be voicing Dr. David Anders/Dinosaurus. Then, he confirmed that Grand Regent Thragg, ruler of the Viltrum Empire, will be making his debut. All of Thragg’s lines have been recorded, but Kirkman is keeping his voice actor under wraps for now.
How to watch: Invincible Season 4 is expected to premiere in 2026. Season 1 – 3 are now streaming on Prime Video.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues got a rocking trailer.
Director Rob Reiner dialed Comic-Con up to 11 with the trailer for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, the long-awaited sequel to 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer all return as members of heavy metal band Spinal Tap, which is reuniting for one final concert. Check out the full trailer above to see cameos from Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Questlove, whom the band desperately tries to recruit as a new drummer. Wisely, he declines, saying he doesn’t want to die like all the other drummers. Good call.
How to watch: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues hits theaters on Sept. 12.
South Park‘s Trey Parker and Matt Stone addressed the show’s Trump-heavy Season 27 premiere.
South Park‘s Season 27 premiere pulled no punches on President Donald Trump. The episode showed Trump in bed with Satan, gave him a micropenis, and made references to him being on the “Epstein list,” all culminating in a naked AI deepfake of Trump. The premiere also took major shots at Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over alleged “deceitful” editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. All this came just hours after South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed a deal with Paramount valued at $1.5 billion.
At a Comic-Con panel, Parker and Stone addressed the reaction to the episode. “We’re terribly sorry,” Parker told the audience.
How to watch: South Park Season 27 is now streaming on Paramount+. New episodes air Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Comedy Central, and stream the next day on Paramount+.
The Strangers – Chapter 2 unveiled a new clip.
The Strangers – Chapter 2 brought a healthy dose of slasher horror to Comic-Con with a brand-new clip, which shows The Strangers: Chapter 1 final girl Maya Lucas (Madelaine Petsch) running for dear life once again. In the clip, a masked stranger puts his own twist on Mortal Kombat‘s Scorpion “Get Over Here” move, yanking Maya towards him by her hair. My scalp’s smarting just watching it.
How to watch: The Strangers – Chapter 2 hits theaters on Sept. 26.
Twisted Metal Season 2 revved fans up with exclusive clips.
In its second season, Twisted Metal finally dives into its titular demolition derby tournament, run by new character Calypso (Anthony Carrigan). Twisted Metal cast members Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Joe Seanoa (AEW’s Samoa Joe), and Carrigan showed Comic-Con attendees exclusive clips of the car-on-car action, including one where a missile blows up a competitor’s car. While the clips aren’t available to watch, you can always sate your Twisted Metal cravings by watching the trailer above.
How to watch: Twisted Metal Season 2 premieres July 31 on Peacock.
Nickelodeon revealed new artwork for Avatar: The Seven Havens.
Artwork from “Avatar: Seven Havens.”
Credit: Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon celebrated Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s 20th anniversary by unveiling a first look at its upcoming series, Avatar: Seven Havens. The series follows the Earth Avatar, who comes after Korra, in a world rocked by a cataclysm. Now, the Avatar is viewed as humanity’s destroyer instead of its savior, so our new Avatar and her long-lost twin find themselves on the run from human and spirit enemies alike.
SEE ALSO:
6 things we want to see in ‘Avatar: Seven Havens’
The artwork above reveals the new Avatar, one of her friends, and a cat-like creature sure to join the likes of Appa, Momo, Naga, and Pabu as a beloved Avatar companion. Equally intriguing is the city behind them, the clusters of crystals growing out of the ground, and the aurora borealis-esque lights circling above. What has happened in the world of Avatar to make it look so different?
How to watch: Avatar: Seven Havens has no release date yet. However, The Legend of Aang: The Last Avatar hits theaters on Oct. 9, 2026.
Critical Role released first looks at The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 and The Mighty Nein Season 1.
Comic-Con was a feast for fans of Critical Role, which revealed major news about two of their upcoming animated series. First up was The Legend of Vox Machina, based on Critical Role’s first-ever live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Critical Role unveiled a sneak peek of the show’s fourth season and also revealed that it had been renewed for a fifth and final season.
As The Legend of Vox Machina comes to an end, a new Critical Role show is only just beginning. The Mighty Nein, based on Critical Role’s second campaign, premieres on Prime Video this fall. Check out a chaotic sneak peek above.
How to watch: The Mighty Nein hits Prime Video Nov. 19. The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 will premiere in 2026. Season 1 – 3 are now streaming on Prime Video.
The Toxic Avenger unleashed a wild first look at Peter Dinklage’s superhero transformation.
Almost two years since its world premiere at 2023’s Fantastic Fest, Macon Blair’s remake of Troma’s The Toxic Avenger finally gets to see the light of day. What better way to celebrate than by watching an absolutely bananas clip from the film?
The clip (above) shows janitor Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) getting a toxic waste makeover. You’ll just have to see it to believe it. Click for the bizarro transformation, stay for the killer juggalos, and see Elijah Wood channeling Danny Devito’s take on the Penguin.
How to watch: The Toxic Avenger opens in theaters on Aug. 29.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 released a spooky new trailer.
Everyone’s favorite killer animatronics are back in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which sees Freddy Fazbear and friends step out of their rundown pizzeria and into the real world. Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Lail reprise their roles from Five Nights at Freddy’s, which earned Blumhouse’s best opening weekend ever and became the highest-grossing horror film of 2023.
Mashable Top Stories
How to watch: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 hits theaters on Dec. 5.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 got a brand-new trailer and release date.
It’s almost time to go back to Camp Half-Blood! Percy Jackson and the Olympians returns to Disney+ on Dec. 10, and we’ve got a teaser trailer to tide us over until then. The series adapts Rick Riordan’s The Sea of Monsters, which sees Percy (Walker Scobell) and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) heading to the Bermuda triangle to find a missing Grover (Aryan Simhadri) and the Golden Fleece. Also along for the ride is Tyson (Daniel Diemer), Percy’s cyclops half-brother.
Riordan also shared exciting casting news at the panel. Nico and Bianca di Angelo, the children of Hades, have been cast for Season 3. Levi Chrisopulos will play Nico, and Olive Abercrombie will play Bianca.
How to watch: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 hits Disney+ on Dec. 10.
Ahsoka Season 2 dropped a first-look image.
Ahsoka Season 2 is currently in production, so there are no trailers yet. However, for anyone yearning for Ahsoka crumbs, the Star Wars Comic-Con panel did release an image from the upcoming season. The image shows Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger, whom Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) finally found at the end of Season 1.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
How to watch: There is no confirmed release date for Ahsoka Season 2. Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.
Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan revealed Pluribus, a new show with Rhea Seehorn.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan returns to TV with his upcoming series Pluribus, starring Better Call Saul‘s Rhea Seehorn. As if the promise of that pairing weren’t enticing enough, Pluribus boasts a fascinating premise. According to the show’s official logline, it’s “a genre-bending original in which the most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness.” Between that and the bizarre first look above, consider me intrigued.
How to watch: Pluribus hits Apple TV+ on Nov. 7.
Starz teased Outlander‘s eighth and final season, along with prequel Outlander: Blood of My Blood.
The epic love story between Jamie and Claire Fraser (Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe) comes to an end in Outlander‘s eighth and final season, set to premiere in 2026. Starz released a new teaser for the season at Comic-Con, above. However, if you can’t wait until next year for Droughtlander to be over, don’t worry. Prequel series Outlander: Blood of My Blood is just around the corner. Chronicling the romances of Jamie and Claire’s parents, Blood of My Blood is sure to deliver more swoon-worthy time travel.
How to watch: Outlander Season 8 premieres in 2026. Seasons 1 – 7 are not streaming on Starz. Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres on Aug. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz, with new episodes streaming Fridays on the Starz app and Starz streaming and on-demand platforms.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 got a new trailer.
AMC’s Walking Dead universe keeps chugging with The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. Season 3 sees Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) continuing their journey through post-apocalyptic Europe, this time headed from England to Spain. On top of releasing a trailer for the new season, the show’s Comic-Con panel also confirmed that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon would be back for a fourth and final season.
How to watch: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 3 premieres on Sept. 7 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+. Seasons 1 – 2 are now streaming on AMC+.
Rick and Morty reveals President Curtis spinoff.
The first look at “President Curtis.”
Credit: Adult Swim
Fan-favorite Rick and Morty character President Curtis (voiced by Keith David) will be getting his own spinoff, co-created by Rick and Morty executive producers Dan Harmon and James Siciliano. According to the show’s official logline, “President Curtis follows the Commander-in-Chief and his eccentric staff as they tackle the kind of crises that Rick Sanchez could never be bothered with – from interdimensional diplomacy to paranormal investigations and unexplained phenomena.”
How to watch: There is no confirmed release date yet for President Curtis.
Alien: Earth screened its first episode.
One of 2025’s most anticipated TV titles is Alien: Earth, an Alien prequel series from Fargo‘s Noah Hawley. Lucky Comic-Con attendees got to watch the very first episode of the show, which follows a group of hybrid soldiers (human consciousnesses in synthetic bodies) on a mission to investigate a Weyland-Yutani ship that’s crash-landed on Earth.
What’s on that ship? Five terrifying life forms from the deepest reaches of space, with the Xenomorph among them, of course. While the episode won’t be available to the public until Aug. 12, you can get pumped for Alien: Earth by watching the trailer above.
How to watch: Alien: Earth premieres on Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and FX.
Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk released a new trailer.
2025 is a big year for Stephen King adaptations, from It: Welcome to Derry to The Running Man to The Long Walk. The latter introduces a dystopian death race, one where a pack of teenage boys must walk for as long as they can. If they fall below a certain speed, they’re killed. Last walker standing wins. My feet already hurt thinking about it.
Director Francis Lawrence is no stranger to films about death games, having directed four Hunger Games films, but this promises to top even those movies’ bleakness. The movie also stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonson, Ben Wang, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill. Catch them in action in the trailer above.
How to watch: The Long Walk hits theaters on Sept. 12.
The Boys spinoff Gen V showcased its Season 2 trailer.
School’s back in session in Gen V Season 2, which returns viewers to supe university Godolkin. This time around, Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and her friends have a sinister new dean (Hamish Linklater) to contend with, along with the mysterious Project Odessa. In the trailed released at Comic-Con, Marie also crosses paths with Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) from The Boys, hinting at a greater crossover between the two series.
The trailer also addresses the loss of Andre, whose actor, Chance Perdomo, passed away in 2024.
How to watch: Gen V Season 2 hits Prime Video on Sept. 17.
Dan Trachtenberg teased Predator: Badlands.
The trailer for Predator: Badlands is already out, but the film’s Comic-Con panel saw director Dan Trachtenberg diving further into what audiences can expect from the latest Predator film. Badlands makes a Predator into a protagonist, a first for the franchise. That led to another first: lead Predator warrior Dek’s (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) face isn’t practical, as digital effects were needed to create nuanced expressions.
“We wanted to make sure we could go to emotional places, so we developed a unique system, Trachtenberg told audiences, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The system involved practical body suits in addition to the digital face.
Comic-Con attendees also got to watch the first 15 minutes of the film, in which runt Yautja Dek is sent to the planet Genna, where he must hunt and kill the “unkillable Kalisk.”
How to watch: Predator: Badlands hits theaters on Nov. 7.
Tron: Ares unveiled exclusive footage.
Tron sequel Tron: Ares took the stage at Comic-Con with a laser show and teases of Nine Inch Nails’ score for the film. (Nine Inch Nails takes over from Daft Punk, who scored Tron: Legacy.)
The Tron: Ares panel showed audience members exclusive footage from the movie, including a light cycle chase and a new digital world created by Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). The film also stars Jared Leto as AI Ares, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Gillian Anderson, and Jeff Bridges, reprising his role as Kevin Flynn. While the Comic-Con footage isn’t available to the public, you can check out the trailer above.
How to watch: Tron: Ares hits theaters on Oct. 10.
Coyote vs. Acme finally got a release date.
The story of the Looney Tunes film Coyote vs. Acme is one of the most memorable entertainment sagas of the past few years. In 2023, Warner Bros. scrapped the completed movie in favor of a tax cut. It then tried to sell the title to companies like Netflix and Amazon. But when Warner Bros. rejected their offers, it seemed like Coyote vs. Acme would be shelved for good.
Thankfully, Ketchup Entertainment — which also released The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, another film that Warner Bros. chose to shop around instead of releasing — stepped in and bought the film. Now, finally, it has a release date: Aug. 28, 2026. That’s not all that was confirmed at Coyote vs. Acme‘s panel, though: Turns out Bugs Bunny himself will be making a cameo in the movie. Bring it on.
How to watch: Coyote vs. Acme hits theaters on Aug. 28, 2026.
This is a developing news story and will be updated accordingly.
Source link
#ComicCon #movie #announcements
![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")
Post Comment