Xiaomi 17 Review: I Took It to Thailand for a Real Camera Test
Xiaomi phones are a little tough to judge. After all, these guys do everything, from making phones to laptops and sometimes even record-breaking electric SUVs. The Xiaomi 17 is a bit like the quiet kid that never gets noticed, simply because its bigger brother, the 17 Ultra, is on a streak of collecting all the best smartphone camera awards. But here’s the thing: most people won’t ever splurge that much money on a non-Samsung or Apple Ultra flagship. The main sales driver will always be the base model, and that’s the question I had in mind. Can the Xiaomi 17 go head-to-head with the OPPO Find X9 and the vivo X300, especially since it’s more expensive than both? You can thank AI for that.
To answer this very question, I got the Xiaomi 17 for review and took it with me on a work trip to Phuket, Thailand. Here, I used the phone to capture about 500 photos in the summer heat, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, and constant GPS navigation to put the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC through its paces. Spoiler alert, I really do love this phone, but there are a few quirks, too. Here’s why.
Xiaomi 17 Review
Hisan Kidwai
Summary
The Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Design & Hardware
If Apple were ever going to make an Android phone, then they’d probably design something like the Xiaomi 17. I wouldn’t describe the build as flashy, but it’s super elegant and reminiscent of past Xiaomi flagships. I talked about this in my X300 Pro review, as creating a brand identity to compete against Samsung and Apple is super important, and Xiaomi has listened. While I was using it daily, many of my friends and family asked me what Xiaomi phone I was using—note the wording: “Xiaomi phone,” meaning they knew it was a particular brand, and that’s important. The Chinese smartphone maker said they thought of every curve, and I’ll just say it straight: the 17 is the best-feeling compact phone I’ve held this year.
The corners are crafted to perfection, the width is spot on, and even the way the aluminum frame blends into the glass without an abrupt edge makes carrying the phone a very enjoyable experience. Beyond that, the back glass is frosted to prevent the phone from slipping off glass surfaces, and the side frame doesn’t let go of its color inside a case.
Speaking of color, you get plenty of options, but my favorite is definitely the blue variant, as it has that breezy summer vibe. The buttons are tactile and positioned where your hand would naturally rest.
Moving to the camera module, Xiaomi has taken the iPhone route of individual stove-top camera cutouts. There are four of them (one houses the flash), and aside from the fact that dust is difficult to get out from between, I do quite like them. The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is positioned at a comfy place where your thumb would naturally rest. I used it on the beach with wet hands, and it worked perfectly fine. Besides, the phone is IP69-rated for dust and water resistance, meaning it should technically withstand a swim. Did I dare take it inside the water on the beach? Absolutely not, because the IP rating is only for fresh water, and seawater can cause irreversible damage.
Display
I’ve said this before that all flagship displays are essentially the same, and that holds true for the Xiaomi 17, too. The phone features a 6.3-inch 1220 x 2656 OLED display, with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate. This time, Xiaomi has trimmed the bezels even more for a more premium look, and I’m a fan. The panel is exceptionally color-accurate and vibrant for content consumption, as evidenced by my 3-hour run of The Pitt season 2 on the flight to Thailand. Even the HDR performance is exceptional.
Xiaomi claims a peak brightness number of 3,500 nits. Sadly, I don’t have a light meter to put the claim to the test, but from my experience using the panel in the 12 noon sun at Phi Phi Island, it’s plenty bright for outdoor use. The texts were legible, and I could use the phone for GPS navigation without squinting.
When it comes to durability, I usually don’t like to test that part myself and instead rely on user reports. However, I accidentally dropped the Xiaomi 17 on a concrete floor. The result was surprisingly good. I dropped it, without a case, from a tripod at chest height, meaning that, while the phone was in the air, all sorts of scary thoughts came to mind, including how much this repair was going to cost me. Thankfully, the phone escaped with only minor damage to the frame.
Performance & Software
Performance is what makes or breaks the smartphone experience, and it’s no surprise to anyone that the Xiaomi 17 delivers top-of-the-line performance. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the best Android processor in the market, and it’s coupled with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 internal storage. The results? The Xiaomi 17 is an absolute joy to use. It flies through the UI like nothing, and there’s ample headroom for literally any task. That being said, the phone runs on HyperOS 3, which, for the uninitiated, is a very altered version of Android that resembles more like iOS.
I don’t have a problem with the look, especially since HyperOS is one of the smoothest Android skins, with silky animations and a lot of customization. My issue is that, unlike other Chinese skins that allow you to tone down the iOS-ness, Xiaomi doesn’t.
For example, the notification shade is divided into two sections: the quick control and the panel. I don’t like that, but when I went digging in the settings to find a way to merge them, there wasn’t. Also, the back gesture is enabled in the keyboard, so when I tried deleting long text, it would often send me back instead.
There are a few silver linings I wish others would copy from HyperOS, one major one being the lockscreen customizations. There are so many options, and every one of them looks gorgeous. As this is 2026, there’s a host of AI features, such as object eraser, image upscaling, and inpainting. I tried them all, and they work exactly as you’d expect. The company also promises about six years of major software updates and security patches. This is better than vivo’s five years.
Benchmarks & Gaming
As this is a review, I also ran a series of benchmarks to test the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s limits. The phone scored 3,415 in Geekbench’s single-core test and 10,008 in the multi-core test. These are insane numbers, especially when compared with the likes of the vivo X300 Pro and the Find X9, which score about 20%-30% lower in multi-core tests. The story remained similar on AnTuTu, where the Xiaomi 17 handsomely beat its Chinese rivals, scoring 3,423,349.
As expected, this performance translates extremely well in gaming. I’m a former PUBG (BGMI) eSports player, and my results were exceptional. The phone maintained 120 FPS gameplay even at high settings without a hint of stutter. I also like Xiaomi’s thermal management, which kept the phone from overheating during both gaming and photo capture in Thailand’s hot summer.
Battery Life & Charging
After all the chatter about the small form factor, you may expect the Xiaomi 17 to compromise on the battery life, just as other Apple and Samsung phones do. Well, you can’t be more wrong, as the Xiaomi 17 packs an even bigger battery, 6,330mAh to be precise, than the 17 Ultra. And the results are just fantastic. On the morning of my Thailand flight, I unplugged the phone at 5 am. I then continued using the phone for the rest of the day, including the three hours of The Pitt on the flight and map navigation when reaching Phuket airport. I ended the day with 20% remaining, and at 3 am the next morning, I had 20% remaining. For a more typical person, you’d be looking more at two days of usage without a hitch.
When it was finally time to charge, Xiaomi, unlike Samsung, bundles a 100W fast charger in the box that charges the phone from 20% to 80% in just 30 minutes. You also get 50W of reverse wireless charging, though that requires a specific charger.
Cameras
If a phone doesn’t fold in half or has dual screens, the only way to differentiate itself is through the cameras. They are the main reason why people lean towards a certain brand, and recently, both OPPO and vivo have been killing it. However, I think there’s room for a third king: the Xiaomi 17. Like others, it also houses a triple-sensor array, led by the 50MP LightFusion 950 sensor, a 50MP JN1 60mm telephoto, and another 50MP OV50M ultrawide lens. Colors are handled by Leica, and that’s the main strength of the Xiaomi 17. The photos it takes, with the different Leica filters, have a certain character you won’t find anywhere else. Every phone takes similar photos these days, and it’s these color profiles that matter the most.
Still, if you’re not a fan of poking around with the cameras, the default Leica Authentic profile produces colors that are very close to natural, with highlights and shadows handled extremely well. The details are crisp and plenty, the HDR performance is mostly spot on, and the contrast is slightly on the boosted side, which is what I like. Beyond the default camera profile, there are a myriad of filters, such as Negative, Positive, Sepia, Natural, Vibrant, and Blue. Each has a different style of capturing the colors and subject, and I really did find myself going through each and every one of them to decide which actually serves the scene the best. And the results speak for themselves. Every photo tells a different story, and that’s the Xiaomi 17’s biggest strength.
The telephoto lens is 2.5x, and I’d say the same about it, too. It serves as the main portrait camera, and the images deliver stellar detail, with excellent foreground separation and improved natural skin tones without the infamous beautification. Xiaomi doesn’t rely much on AI processing, so zooming past 5x-6x will result in blurry photos. Keep that in mind. The ultrawide hasn’t changed from the previous generation, so it still doesn’t have autofocus for macro photography. While it works great when the light is ample, I saw a significant drop in quality at night.
Speaking of the night, both the main and telephoto sensors benefit from Xiaomi’s mature image processing, which retains detail in shadows without making the image muddy or introducing noise. Videos, which can be shot at up to 8K, carry similar details in all lighting conditions, and I’m a fan. Sadly, it’s not all perfect. In Thailand’s heat, some of the videos I captured were choppy, even when I was in the hotel. This problem then carried over to India, where the first few seconds of every video would stutter. I’ve communicated this issue with the Xiaomi team, so a fix could be imminent. Overall, I love the Xiaomi 17’s cameras.
Verdict
Sure, the ₹89,999 price tag of the Xiaomi 17 might feel a bit much, considering it’s more than the vivo and OPPO competition. But the Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Xiaomi phones are a little tough to judge. After all, these guys do everything, from making phones to laptops and sometimes even record-breaking electric SUVs. The Xiaomi 17 is a bit like the quiet kid that never gets noticed, simply because its bigger brother, the 17 Ultra, is on a streak of collecting all the best smartphone camera awards. But here’s the thing: most people won’t ever splurge that much money on a non-Samsung or Apple Ultra flagship. The main sales driver will always be the base model, and that’s the question I had in mind. Can the Xiaomi 17 go head-to-head with the OPPO Find X9 and the vivo X300, especially since it’s more expensive than both? You can thank AI for that.
To answer this very question, I got the Xiaomi 17 for review and took it with me on a work trip to Phuket, Thailand. Here, I used the phone to capture about 500 photos in the summer heat, with temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, and constant GPS navigation to put the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC through its paces. Spoiler alert, I really do love this phone, but there are a few quirks, too. Here’s why.
Xiaomi 17 Review
Hisan Kidwai
Summary
The Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
Design & Hardware
If Apple were ever going to make an Android phone, then they’d probably design something like the Xiaomi 17. I wouldn’t describe the build as flashy, but it’s super elegant and reminiscent of past Xiaomi flagships. I talked about this in my X300 Pro review, as creating a brand identity to compete against Samsung and Apple is super important, and Xiaomi has listened. While I was using it daily, many of my friends and family asked me what Xiaomi phone I was using—note the wording: “Xiaomi phone,” meaning they knew it was a particular brand, and that’s important. The Chinese smartphone maker said they thought of every curve, and I’ll just say it straight: the 17 is the best-feeling compact phone I’ve held this year.
The corners are crafted to perfection, the width is spot on, and even the way the aluminum frame blends into the glass without an abrupt edge makes carrying the phone a very enjoyable experience. Beyond that, the back glass is frosted to prevent the phone from slipping off glass surfaces, and the side frame doesn’t let go of its color inside a case.
Speaking of color, you get plenty of options, but my favorite is definitely the blue variant, as it has that breezy summer vibe. The buttons are tactile and positioned where your hand would naturally rest.
Moving to the camera module, Xiaomi has taken the iPhone route of individual stove-top camera cutouts. There are four of them (one houses the flash), and aside from the fact that dust is difficult to get out from between, I do quite like them. The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is positioned at a comfy place where your thumb would naturally rest. I used it on the beach with wet hands, and it worked perfectly fine. Besides, the phone is IP69-rated for dust and water resistance, meaning it should technically withstand a swim. Did I dare take it inside the water on the beach? Absolutely not, because the IP rating is only for fresh water, and seawater can cause irreversible damage.
Display
I’ve said this before that all flagship displays are essentially the same, and that holds true for the Xiaomi 17, too. The phone features a 6.3-inch 1220 x 2656 OLED display, with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate. This time, Xiaomi has trimmed the bezels even more for a more premium look, and I’m a fan. The panel is exceptionally color-accurate and vibrant for content consumption, as evidenced by my 3-hour run of The Pitt season 2 on the flight to Thailand. Even the HDR performance is exceptional.
Xiaomi claims a peak brightness number of 3,500 nits. Sadly, I don’t have a light meter to put the claim to the test, but from my experience using the panel in the 12 noon sun at Phi Phi Island, it’s plenty bright for outdoor use. The texts were legible, and I could use the phone for GPS navigation without squinting.
When it comes to durability, I usually don’t like to test that part myself and instead rely on user reports. However, I accidentally dropped the Xiaomi 17 on a concrete floor. The result was surprisingly good. I dropped it, without a case, from a tripod at chest height, meaning that, while the phone was in the air, all sorts of scary thoughts came to mind, including how much this repair was going to cost me. Thankfully, the phone escaped with only minor damage to the frame.
Performance & Software
Performance is what makes or breaks the smartphone experience, and it’s no surprise to anyone that the Xiaomi 17 delivers top-of-the-line performance. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the best Android processor in the market, and it’s coupled with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 internal storage. The results? The Xiaomi 17 is an absolute joy to use. It flies through the UI like nothing, and there’s ample headroom for literally any task. That being said, the phone runs on HyperOS 3, which, for the uninitiated, is a very altered version of Android that resembles more like iOS.
I don’t have a problem with the look, especially since HyperOS is one of the smoothest Android skins, with silky animations and a lot of customization. My issue is that, unlike other Chinese skins that allow you to tone down the iOS-ness, Xiaomi doesn’t.
For example, the notification shade is divided into two sections: the quick control and the panel. I don’t like that, but when I went digging in the settings to find a way to merge them, there wasn’t. Also, the back gesture is enabled in the keyboard, so when I tried deleting long text, it would often send me back instead.
There are a few silver linings I wish others would copy from HyperOS, one major one being the lockscreen customizations. There are so many options, and every one of them looks gorgeous. As this is 2026, there’s a host of AI features, such as object eraser, image upscaling, and inpainting. I tried them all, and they work exactly as you’d expect. The company also promises about six years of major software updates and security patches. This is better than vivo’s five years.
Benchmarks & Gaming
As this is a review, I also ran a series of benchmarks to test the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5’s limits. The phone scored 3,415 in Geekbench’s single-core test and 10,008 in the multi-core test. These are insane numbers, especially when compared with the likes of the vivo X300 Pro and the Find X9, which score about 20%-30% lower in multi-core tests. The story remained similar on AnTuTu, where the Xiaomi 17 handsomely beat its Chinese rivals, scoring 3,423,349.
As expected, this performance translates extremely well in gaming. I’m a former PUBG (BGMI) eSports player, and my results were exceptional. The phone maintained 120 FPS gameplay even at high settings without a hint of stutter. I also like Xiaomi’s thermal management, which kept the phone from overheating during both gaming and photo capture in Thailand’s hot summer.
Battery Life & Charging
After all the chatter about the small form factor, you may expect the Xiaomi 17 to compromise on the battery life, just as other Apple and Samsung phones do. Well, you can’t be more wrong, as the Xiaomi 17 packs an even bigger battery, 6,330mAh to be precise, than the 17 Ultra. And the results are just fantastic. On the morning of my Thailand flight, I unplugged the phone at 5 am. I then continued using the phone for the rest of the day, including the three hours of The Pitt on the flight and map navigation when reaching Phuket airport. I ended the day with 20% remaining, and at 3 am the next morning, I had 20% remaining. For a more typical person, you’d be looking more at two days of usage without a hitch.
When it was finally time to charge, Xiaomi, unlike Samsung, bundles a 100W fast charger in the box that charges the phone from 20% to 80% in just 30 minutes. You also get 50W of reverse wireless charging, though that requires a specific charger.
Cameras
If a phone doesn’t fold in half or has dual screens, the only way to differentiate itself is through the cameras. They are the main reason why people lean towards a certain brand, and recently, both OPPO and vivo have been killing it. However, I think there’s room for a third king: the Xiaomi 17. Like others, it also houses a triple-sensor array, led by the 50MP LightFusion 950 sensor, a 50MP JN1 60mm telephoto, and another 50MP OV50M ultrawide lens. Colors are handled by Leica, and that’s the main strength of the Xiaomi 17. The photos it takes, with the different Leica filters, have a certain character you won’t find anywhere else. Every phone takes similar photos these days, and it’s these color profiles that matter the most.
Still, if you’re not a fan of poking around with the cameras, the default Leica Authentic profile produces colors that are very close to natural, with highlights and shadows handled extremely well. The details are crisp and plenty, the HDR performance is mostly spot on, and the contrast is slightly on the boosted side, which is what I like. Beyond the default camera profile, there are a myriad of filters, such as Negative, Positive, Sepia, Natural, Vibrant, and Blue. Each has a different style of capturing the colors and subject, and I really did find myself going through each and every one of them to decide which actually serves the scene the best. And the results speak for themselves. Every photo tells a different story, and that’s the Xiaomi 17’s biggest strength.
The telephoto lens is 2.5x, and I’d say the same about it, too. It serves as the main portrait camera, and the images deliver stellar detail, with excellent foreground separation and improved natural skin tones without the infamous beautification. Xiaomi doesn’t rely much on AI processing, so zooming past 5x-6x will result in blurry photos. Keep that in mind. The ultrawide hasn’t changed from the previous generation, so it still doesn’t have autofocus for macro photography. While it works great when the light is ample, I saw a significant drop in quality at night.
Speaking of the night, both the main and telephoto sensors benefit from Xiaomi’s mature image processing, which retains detail in shadows without making the image muddy or introducing noise. Videos, which can be shot at up to 8K, carry similar details in all lighting conditions, and I’m a fan. Sadly, it’s not all perfect. In Thailand’s heat, some of the videos I captured were choppy, even when I was in the hotel. This problem then carried over to India, where the first few seconds of every video would stutter. I’ve communicated this issue with the Xiaomi team, so a fix could be imminent. Overall, I love the Xiaomi 17’s cameras.
Verdict
Sure, the ₹89,999 price tag of the Xiaomi 17 might feel a bit much, considering it’s more than the vivo and OPPO competition. But the Xiaomi 17 brings a lot of things to the table. You get the best-in-class performance that’s miles ahead of the competition. A design that’s understated yet premium. Battery life that can easily last two full days, and cameras that, instead of being same same but different, induce a character to each and every photo that makes them more memorable. Of course, it’s not perfect. I’d like the camera bugs fixed and ultrawide performance improved, but overall, the Xiaomi 17 gets my recommendation.
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#49ers #coach #Tesla #Autopilot #crashedElectric Cars,Entertainment,News,Sports,Tesla,Transportation">49ers coach says his Tesla was on Autopilot when he crashed
“I’ve had Autopilot for nine years, so I’m pretty comfortable with it and, you know, who knows what happened when I turned around? Whether it malfunctioned or whether I knocked it off? That’s something I don’t know yet. But regardless, that’s… it is always your fault, whether you’re on Autopilot or not. You can’t take your eyes off the road. It’s a partnership driving, you don’t just turn it over to a computer.”
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 $12.1 billion out of the $14.8 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 $3.3 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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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 $12.1 billion out of the $14.8 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 $3.3 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 $12.1 billion out of the $14.8 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 $3.3 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.
Every step you take closes the doors that the attacker may open slightly, and when you combine everything, you would have a door to a series of locked gates.
Why Do I Need a Bastion Host?
When it comes to teams working with many servers, deploying a bastion host (jump box) may be a clean and effective way to solve the long-term problem. With this method, you only expose SSH to the bastion, and the other servers accept it only when it’s from the bastion’s internal IP. This centralizes logging and makes auditing access far simpler.
Using a virtual private network (VPN) and a bastion host together is perfectly fine – and many solutions use both: a safe way to access the private network via a VPN, followed by use of a bastion host to restrict which servers can be accessed. Some teams may decide to forgo the bastion because they don’t have the manpower to manage one, and so use a combination of a VPN and a set of firewall rules that still quite a bit lowers the exposure, but without the extra effort.
Mistakes Leading to Leaving Cloud Servers Open
The Mistakes That Cause Leaving Cloud Servers Open: Even the safest development teams may have slip-ups from time to time. One of the most frequent is leaving staged, or test servers with relaxed firewall rules equivalent to those of the production environment – hackers don’t concern themselves with which environment they first land on. Another frequent error is reusing the same SSH key on several servers and clients, causing one hacked laptop to compromise all servers that key has access to.
Another common human error is not removing or changing access when someone leaves the team, so stale credentials remain valid and accessible. At last, putting trust in the strategy of “security through obscurity” – meaning one thinks that setting up the unusual port or hiding the hostname from the public is actually sufficient security – creates a wrong impression of security. This is mostly true; in reality, modern-day attackers scan all ports anyway, and there is no way to hide from them.
System Administrators Guide to Secure Remote Access
Prohibit SSH password logins totally and depend exclusively on key-based authentication
Surely no one wants to type in the password every time; because of this, use only key-based authentication
Deter the user from logging in as root by default and instead use the sudo command to do root tasks
A firewall or security group rule can provide great help with IP address-based restrictions on SSH logins
For access that comes from untrusted sources or external networks, use a secure tunnel like a vpn or bastion host
Periodically change SSH keys and inspect access lists
Maintain records of login attempts and detect brute-force attacks as quickly as possible
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the principal means by which cloud servers suffer break-ins through remote access?
By far the biggest reason why this can happen is unauthorized password-based SSH logins that have been cracked by brute force. The scenario is most likely to develop where the administrator allows root login via password and leaves the default port open.
Sufficient security measures for the server via SSH keys: Do you think it is safe to rely only on key authentication?
It is true that SSH keys drastically decrease the danger of a successful brute-force attack. However, if there is only key authentication on the server, there are still risks – the server administrator can always enable root login or disable the IP-based login restrictions. So it is recommended to always have these three in the server configuration: disabled root login, restricted access to known IPs, and rotating the keys regularly as the main components of meaningful protection.
Is it really necessary to set up a separate VPN network while I am able to connect via SSH keys?
A VPN gives extra security by first encrypting your computer traffic before it reaches your network, where the SSH connection will be used. This is mostly important when working on untrusted networks – like public wi-fi – where there is a threat of a potential hacker in your local network looking at your data.
Bastion host vs VPN as methods of accessing the server?
The bastion host works by funneling SSH sessions from many users through a single, carefully monitored server point while the rest of the network (and mostly the servers) remains protected from the internet. At the same time, a vpn will fully encrypt the communication between the user and the corporate network or servers. The combination is very common among larger security teams as a part of the defense-in-depth principle.
How often should SSH keys be rotated?
The ideal period to change your SSH keys depends on the security practices of your organization, but generally a good practice is to change SSH keys between 90 and 180 days, or in the case that the user who had access with the key leaves or is no longer able to be contacted, such as when a team member leaves.
Why is only changing the port number for SSH enough to secure that port?
Changing the port reduces automated scanning noise in your logs but isn’t a real security control on its own — port scanners check all ports, so it should never replace key-based auth and firewall rules.
Every step you take closes the doors that the attacker may open slightly, and when you combine everything, you would have a door to a series of locked gates.
Why Do I Need a Bastion Host?
When it comes to teams working with many servers, deploying a bastion host (jump box) may be a clean and effective way to solve the long-term problem. With this method, you only expose SSH to the bastion, and the other servers accept it only when it’s from the bastion’s internal IP. This centralizes logging and makes auditing access far simpler.
Using a virtual private network (VPN) and a bastion host together is perfectly fine – and many solutions use both: a safe way to access the private network via a VPN, followed by use of a bastion host to restrict which servers can be accessed. Some teams may decide to forgo the bastion because they don’t have the manpower to manage one, and so use a combination of a VPN and a set of firewall rules that still quite a bit lowers the exposure, but without the extra effort.
Mistakes Leading to Leaving Cloud Servers Open
The Mistakes That Cause Leaving Cloud Servers Open: Even the safest development teams may have slip-ups from time to time. One of the most frequent is leaving staged, or test servers with relaxed firewall rules equivalent to those of the production environment – hackers don’t concern themselves with which environment they first land on. Another frequent error is reusing the same SSH key on several servers and clients, causing one hacked laptop to compromise all servers that key has access to.
Another common human error is not removing or changing access when someone leaves the team, so stale credentials remain valid and accessible. At last, putting trust in the strategy of “security through obscurity” – meaning one thinks that setting up the unusual port or hiding the hostname from the public is actually sufficient security – creates a wrong impression of security. This is mostly true; in reality, modern-day attackers scan all ports anyway, and there is no way to hide from them.
System Administrators Guide to Secure Remote Access
Prohibit SSH password logins totally and depend exclusively on key-based authentication
Surely no one wants to type in the password every time; because of this, use only key-based authentication
Deter the user from logging in as root by default and instead use the sudo command to do root tasks
A firewall or security group rule can provide great help with IP address-based restrictions on SSH logins
For access that comes from untrusted sources or external networks, use a secure tunnel like a vpn or bastion host
Periodically change SSH keys and inspect access lists
Maintain records of login attempts and detect brute-force attacks as quickly as possible
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the principal means by which cloud servers suffer break-ins through remote access?
By far the biggest reason why this can happen is unauthorized password-based SSH logins that have been cracked by brute force. The scenario is most likely to develop where the administrator allows root login via password and leaves the default port open.
Sufficient security measures for the server via SSH keys: Do you think it is safe to rely only on key authentication?
It is true that SSH keys drastically decrease the danger of a successful brute-force attack. However, if there is only key authentication on the server, there are still risks – the server administrator can always enable root login or disable the IP-based login restrictions. So it is recommended to always have these three in the server configuration: disabled root login, restricted access to known IPs, and rotating the keys regularly as the main components of meaningful protection.
Is it really necessary to set up a separate VPN network while I am able to connect via SSH keys?
A VPN gives extra security by first encrypting your computer traffic before it reaches your network, where the SSH connection will be used. This is mostly important when working on untrusted networks – like public wi-fi – where there is a threat of a potential hacker in your local network looking at your data.
Bastion host vs VPN as methods of accessing the server?
The bastion host works by funneling SSH sessions from many users through a single, carefully monitored server point while the rest of the network (and mostly the servers) remains protected from the internet. At the same time, a vpn will fully encrypt the communication between the user and the corporate network or servers. The combination is very common among larger security teams as a part of the defense-in-depth principle.
How often should SSH keys be rotated?
The ideal period to change your SSH keys depends on the security practices of your organization, but generally a good practice is to change SSH keys between 90 and 180 days, or in the case that the user who had access with the key leaves or is no longer able to be contacted, such as when a team member leaves.
Why is only changing the port number for SSH enough to secure that port?
Changing the port reduces automated scanning noise in your logs but isn’t a real security control on its own — port scanners check all ports, so it should never replace key-based auth and firewall rules.
#Secure #Remote #Access #Cloud #ServerCloud,remote access">How to Secure Remote Access to Your Cloud Server in 2026
Protection against unauthorized remote logins to your cloud server is a matter of SSH key-based authentication, a strict security policy on the firewall, two-factor authentication, and a secure communication channel – no individual component will give adequate protection by itself. The major risk point in breaches is not the server but the open door to remote login. To patch that vulnerability, you need a series of countermeasures, not a magical setting.
Why Remote Server Access Is a Common Attack Vector
Every cloud server exposes at least one remote access point – usually SSH on port 22 – and that port is scanned constantly by bots looking for weak credentials. Password-based login is the most common way a system can be attacked by brute force, and it is quite common with a standard setup that the system is left in a state where an admin/user of that system – “root user” – can log in directly by guessing the user ID and the password combination. Add in shared team credentials, forgotten firewall rules from old projects, and staging servers left publicly reachable, and it’s clear why misconfigured remote access – not zero-day exploits – is behind most cloud server compromises. The fix is simple, though you’ll need to do some setup yourself instead of trusting the default setting.
How to lock down SSH access in the right way
The best way to secure remote access is through a series of small improvements rather than one major overhaul. The following is a real working method:
Switch to SSH key authentication, then turn off password login completely in the same location: sshd_config. Keys are far harder to brute-force than passwords.
Disable root login over SSH and require a non-root user with sudo privileges instead; this is a security advantage that even without any change, one key compromising would limit the impact.
Change the default SSH port away from 22 to cut down on automated scanning noise (not a security measure on its own, but it reduces log clutter).
Restrict access by IP using your firewall or security group, allowing SSH only from known office or VPN IP ranges rather than the entire internet.
Add a VPN as a connection layer for anyone accessing servers from outside a trusted network – a VPN like Planet VPN’s free VPN service can encrypt the connection between a remote worker’s laptop and the server before SSH traffic ever leaves their device, which matters especially on public wi-fi or shared networks.
Every step you take closes the doors that the attacker may open slightly, and when you combine everything, you would have a door to a series of locked gates.
Why Do I Need a Bastion Host?
When it comes to teams working with many servers, deploying a bastion host (jump box) may be a clean and effective way to solve the long-term problem. With this method, you only expose SSH to the bastion, and the other servers accept it only when it’s from the bastion’s internal IP. This centralizes logging and makes auditing access far simpler.
Using a virtual private network (VPN) and a bastion host together is perfectly fine – and many solutions use both: a safe way to access the private network via a VPN, followed by use of a bastion host to restrict which servers can be accessed. Some teams may decide to forgo the bastion because they don’t have the manpower to manage one, and so use a combination of a VPN and a set of firewall rules that still quite a bit lowers the exposure, but without the extra effort.
Mistakes Leading to Leaving Cloud Servers Open
The Mistakes That Cause Leaving Cloud Servers Open: Even the safest development teams may have slip-ups from time to time. One of the most frequent is leaving staged, or test servers with relaxed firewall rules equivalent to those of the production environment – hackers don’t concern themselves with which environment they first land on. Another frequent error is reusing the same SSH key on several servers and clients, causing one hacked laptop to compromise all servers that key has access to.
Another common human error is not removing or changing access when someone leaves the team, so stale credentials remain valid and accessible. At last, putting trust in the strategy of “security through obscurity” – meaning one thinks that setting up the unusual port or hiding the hostname from the public is actually sufficient security – creates a wrong impression of security. This is mostly true; in reality, modern-day attackers scan all ports anyway, and there is no way to hide from them.
System Administrators Guide to Secure Remote Access
Prohibit SSH password logins totally and depend exclusively on key-based authentication
Surely no one wants to type in the password every time; because of this, use only key-based authentication
Deter the user from logging in as root by default and instead use the sudo command to do root tasks
A firewall or security group rule can provide great help with IP address-based restrictions on SSH logins
For access that comes from untrusted sources or external networks, use a secure tunnel like a vpn or bastion host
Periodically change SSH keys and inspect access lists
Maintain records of login attempts and detect brute-force attacks as quickly as possible
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the principal means by which cloud servers suffer break-ins through remote access?
By far the biggest reason why this can happen is unauthorized password-based SSH logins that have been cracked by brute force. The scenario is most likely to develop where the administrator allows root login via password and leaves the default port open.
Sufficient security measures for the server via SSH keys: Do you think it is safe to rely only on key authentication?
It is true that SSH keys drastically decrease the danger of a successful brute-force attack. However, if there is only key authentication on the server, there are still risks – the server administrator can always enable root login or disable the IP-based login restrictions. So it is recommended to always have these three in the server configuration: disabled root login, restricted access to known IPs, and rotating the keys regularly as the main components of meaningful protection.
Is it really necessary to set up a separate VPN network while I am able to connect via SSH keys?
A VPN gives extra security by first encrypting your computer traffic before it reaches your network, where the SSH connection will be used. This is mostly important when working on untrusted networks – like public wi-fi – where there is a threat of a potential hacker in your local network looking at your data.
Bastion host vs VPN as methods of accessing the server?
The bastion host works by funneling SSH sessions from many users through a single, carefully monitored server point while the rest of the network (and mostly the servers) remains protected from the internet. At the same time, a vpn will fully encrypt the communication between the user and the corporate network or servers. The combination is very common among larger security teams as a part of the defense-in-depth principle.
How often should SSH keys be rotated?
The ideal period to change your SSH keys depends on the security practices of your organization, but generally a good practice is to change SSH keys between 90 and 180 days, or in the case that the user who had access with the key leaves or is no longer able to be contacted, such as when a team member leaves.
Why is only changing the port number for SSH enough to secure that port?
Changing the port reduces automated scanning noise in your logs but isn’t a real security control on its own — port scanners check all ports, so it should never replace key-based auth and firewall rules.
![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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