King's Cross in London has become a hub for AI startups
The King’s Cross neighborhood in London has become one of the UK’s leading hubs for artificial intelligence companies. Among the companies operating in or near the area, TechCrunch lists OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayve, Recursive, Synthesia, and Anthropic. The growth of this tech cluster accelerated after DeepMind moved to the area in 2016, when the company was already owned by Google.
According to Dealroom, there are about 3,600 AI startups operating in London. Together, they have raised approximately $12.1 billion out of the $14.8 billion in investments received by the city’s startups since the end of July. AI-related companies have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London since early June, according to real estate firm Knight Frank.
The demand for office space has impacted the King’s Cross real estate market. Over the past three years, rental rates for premium office space in the area have risen by 18%. According to Knight Frank representative Chris Dunn, this figure applies to the largest lease agreements covering 10,000 square feet or more. At the same time, the vacancy rate for standard office space stands at 0.9%, and demand exceeds supply.
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Anthropic has a new 158,000-square-foot office in the area. Also operating nearby are Sierra, a developer of AI agents, and Synthesia, a video creation platform. When Anthropic announced its move to London earlier this year, the company listed an annual salary range of 260,000 to 630,000 pounds sterling for the position of machine learning research engineer. The average salary for a similar position in London is about 102,000 pounds.
Wayve founder Alex Kendall said the company moved to King’s Cross in 2018, looking for a space that could also serve as a garage. Synthesia noted that about two-thirds of its engineers work remotely, which allows the company to attract specialists from various European countries.
Phoenix Court co-founder Robin Klein linked discussions about Europe’s technological autonomy to Anthropic’s termination of access to Mythos and Fable. In his view, Europe needs to develop its own AI capabilities and resources, while the UK needs to develop infrastructure, computing power, energy, and capital.
