Afternoon.

It’s Friday 25th September: Britain’s biggest planned AI supercomputer has hit a power problem, British carmakers risk getting caught between Europe and China and a tiny clay rabbit has sold for nearly £10,000.

Kettle on.

📅 On this day: In 1066, King Harold defeated a Norwegian invasion at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. He then had to march his army roughly 200 miles south to face another invasion led by William of Normandy. That one went rather less well.

Britain’s biggest planned AI supercomputer has run into an awkward obstacle: there isn’t enough power where it’s supposed to go.

The huge data centre in Loughton, Essex, was due to start operating in 2027 as the UK’s largest “sovereign” AI facility, meaning computing infrastructure based in Britain rather than relying on overseas providers. But the local electricity network reportedly cannot provide enough power until the early to mid-2030s.

Developer Nscale is looking at alternatives, including generating power on site or speeding up its grid connection. It’s part of a wider problem: data centres use enormous amounts of electricity and are competing with homes and businesses for connections to an already stretched grid.

Building the computers, it turns out, may be the easy bit.

Britain’s car industry could be caught out by new EU rules designed to protect European manufacturers from Chinese competition.

The EU is developing “Made in Europe” rules that would favour European-made products when governments spend public money on things such as electric vehicles. France says British products shouldn’t qualify, while Britain wants them included.

Exclusion could put British carmakers at a disadvantage when European governments offer subsidies or award public contracts. Complicating matters, the EU imposes extra tariffs on Chinese-made EVs while Britain does not, giving the two sides different approaches to Chinese competition.

Britain wants close access to Europe’s car market while maintaining its own trade policy. These rules could test how easily it can have both.

The NHS is piloting a rapid genomic test that could dramatically cut the time patients wait to find out exactly what type of brain tumour they have. 

The test analyses the DNA of a tumour sample, helping doctors choose the most appropriate treatment. Results that previously took weeks could be available within days, or in some cases within two hours while surgery is still under way.

Getting that information sooner could mean patients start the right treatment more quickly and gain earlier access to relevant clinical trials.

A government-commissioned review of ADHD services is due next month, with a sizeable backlog to reckon with.

In West Yorkshire, people seeking an ADHD or autism assessment through an independent NHS-funded provider now face a minimum two-year wait. NHS bodies in North East and North Cumbria, Somerset, Devon and Kent and Medway have also introduced waiting restrictions.

Around 960,000 people are waiting for an ADHD assessment in England and another 295,000 for an autism assessment. NHS bodies say demand has outstripped available funding and capacity.

Britain imported more than £21bn more food and drink than it exported in the first half of this year, the largest trade gap since 2000. Export volumes fell 11.7% compared with last year, while imports remained close to record levels. Food manufacturers say Brexit-related trading costs, disruption in the Middle East and US tariffs have all made selling British products overseas harder.

A trade deficit isn’t automatically a crisis: Britain has long imported plenty of food. But farming and food groups argue that the growing gap leaves the country more exposed when wars or extreme weather disrupt global supplies.

Reported assaults on passengers and members of the public on Britain’s mainline railways rose 36% last year to 13,464, the highest figure since records began in 2004. Separately, reported assaults on railway workers rose 12% to 11,289, a figure that includes physical attacks, threats and verbal abuse.

The Office of Rail and Road, which regulates railway safety, says the rise is concerning and has issued guidance to employers on preventing violence and supporting staff. These are reported incidents, so changes in how readily people report abuse can affect the numbers.

Petrol stations aren’t running dry, but diesel is getting pricier.

Global supplies are unusually tight, with inventories running low after disruption to supplies from Russia and the Middle East. Analysts expect the shortage to continue into next year, while European diesel prices have already risen sharply.

Britain is part of that international market, so higher wholesale prices can feed through to businesses and drivers here.

Wallace, Gromit, Feathers McGraw and Shaun the Sheep have been flogged off. Or their plasticine equivalents have, anyway. More than 200 original props and puppets from Bristol-based animation studio Aardman went under the hammer yesterday to raise money for training the next generation of animators.

Among them were models used in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, original Morph and Chas figures and storyboards from The Wrong Trousers. Every lot started at £100. They did not remain there for long.

A tiny clay rabbit from The Curse of the Were-Rabbit went for almost £10,000, while lunch for six with Aardman co-founder Peter Lord fetched more than £11,000. Which is a lot of Wensleydale.

Have a great wekeend.

See you on Monday.

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