{"text":[[{"start":6.2,"text":"Google’s new UK headquarters in King’s Cross, a 330-metre-long “landscraper” where thousands of employees will work, has been a long time coming. The building is due to open later this year after work started in 2017, making it an apt symbol of King’s Cross itself."}],[{"start":24.3,"text":"The redevelopment of the 67-acre site near the centre of London took decades to come to fruition. But the elements have fallen into place to make it an acclaimed revival of a dilapidated district and a base for both British and global companies. One of the most important is Google DeepMind, its AI operation run by Sir Demis Hassabis."}],[{"start":46.45,"text":"King’s Cross, a mixed-use district of residential towers, retail outlets and offices on what was once disused land adjoining the station, has changed London’s geography. It has taken the lead from “Silicon Roundabout” — the half-joking early 2000s nickname for Shoreditch’s start-up cluster — as London’s new hub for technology, venture capital and AI companies."}],[{"start":68.35,"text":"The latest evidence of its global magnetism is the arrival of US companies OpenAI and Anthropic. They are both opening European offices there, close to DeepMind and UK tech start-ups such as Synthesia, the AI video generation platform, and Wayve, the self-driving vehicle software group."}],[{"start":88.19999999999999,"text":"The project shows the virtue of persistence. The area was a byword for squalor in the 1980s, a century after its rise as an industrial hub intersecting the Regent’s Canal and rail lines north from there and the nearby St Pancras station. Various redevelopment plans failed before a revival started with the 2007 move of London’s Eurostar cross-channel terminus to St Pancras."}],[{"start":113.85,"text":"It took £3bn of investment — and a lot of determination in the face of objections from local campaigners — to create what has become a harmonious combination of private property and public spaces. The fact that it has paid off so handsomely carries a lesson for Britain’s sclerotic planning system: even developments that face long delays can be worth the effort."}],[{"start":135.54999999999998,"text":"King’s Cross had inherent advantages, once its grime was scraped away. Rail hubs often have vacant land that can be developed for high-grade offices and are accessible for knowledge workers. St Pancras is linked to Paris and other European business centres, while King’s Cross is the connection for Cambridge, with its chip designer Arm and its life science start-ups."}],[{"start":156.74999999999997,"text":"The district’s proximity to top London universities is also valuable. It hosts the arts and fashion college Central Saint Martins and is close to University College London, where Hassabis studied for a PhD in neuroscience. Like Stanford in Silicon Valley, UCL is becoming pivotal to King’s Cross: Synthesia, for example, was co-founded by a UCL scientist."}],[{"start":180.29999999999998,"text":"The convergence of academic research and commercial technology extends to life sciences. AstraZeneca’s UK head office is there and GSK cited proximity to its “knowledge quarter” in moving to central London two years ago. There is now a cluster of life sciences start-ups around the area, including Isomorphic Labs, an AI drug discovery company headed by Hassabis, which this week raised $2.1bn in venture funding."}],[{"start":207.35,"text":"King’s Cross works as a residential and retail district as well as business location. That is by design — it was always meant to serve a wider urban purpose — but the idea was ahead of its time. Mixed use ensures that it draws visitors and shoppers at all times, including weekends, rather than emptying as people work from home: Canary Wharf is now following this approach."}],[{"start":229.15,"text":"Some problems remain. King’s Cross has attracted capital and raised property prices. “The square mile around our office is the most valuable in the world,” remarks Saul Klein, co-founder of the venture capital group Phoenix Court. But the older residential area of Somers Town, next to St Pancras, remains deprived."}],[{"start":248.45000000000002,"text":"King’s Cross also suffers from the Wimbledon effect: an enterprise hosted by the UK that attracts foreign players. The fact that OpenAI and Anthropic are coming there does not make the UK an AI superpower in itself. Klein notes that start-ups backed by Phoenix Court’s fund are about to attract $2bn of later-stage capital, but only about 10 per cent is coming from UK investors."}],[{"start":271.3,"text":"Despite this, King's Cross remains a salutary example of what British innovation and enterprise can achieve with far-sighted policy and both public and private investment. It was difficult then to imagine what it could become and equally hard now to imagine London without it."}],[{"start":296.45000000000005,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778906872_3070.mp3"}