Yorkshire AI Labs LLP

Revolutionary venture capital. The dynamic fusion of sweat equity & cash, supercharging early-stage companies to unprecedented levels of value & growth.

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

A bad marriage can at least end in divorce.

A bad deal, a bad contract, a bad investor? Much harder.

That’s the argument in my @yorkshirepost column today.

Founders are told raising money is the victory. It isn’t.

The wrong capital can cost you the company.

Equity is not control.

If you do not control the board, you do not control the company.

The sinking feeling is data.

In this week’s Sunday Signal I’m also looking at the AI energy problem, the grid, and the British company trying to change the trade-off between computing power and electricity demand. link below

[Yorkshire AI Labs LLP @YorkshireAI]

A must read

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

Two weeks ago I sat in the @RAEngNews watching a quiet Oxford physicist make the most aggressive claim I have heard in British deep-tech this year.

Ninety-five per cent less energy than an @nvidia GB200 by 2029. Ninety per cent lower cost. A British company doing AI inference with light instead of electrons.

I followed up. The result is this week's Sunday Signal.
The company is @Lumai. The CEO is Dr Xianxin Guo. The Iris Nova server, launched last month, is currently running @AIatMeta's Llama 8B and 70B on optical compute. The only system in the world doing it.
Three lines from the interview that I cannot stop thinking about.

"Cost per token. That is the only metric that matters."
"Jevons' paradox is real, and we will see more AI used, not less."
"Where the company is built is the question that matters, and the answer is the UK."

His ask of the @GOVUK state was not subsidy. It was procurement. A committed government anchor purchase of Lumai hardware into the AI Research Resource, this financial year, or watch the next generation of AI compute be created outside of the UK again.

Britain has watched @GoogleDeepMind, Magic Pony, @vocaliq, Latent Logic and @OxfordIonics walk out of the door.

Light is the next one. Buy the thing, or read the press release.

📡 The full issue: https://t.co/vcHFry6pDF
📡 The full interview with Dr Xianxin Guo: https://t.co/UKbDJ1KOyT

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

https://t.co/2ydlPpBJ5b

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

https://t.co/E973qnenxD

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

https://t.co/X1v14L2yN9

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

Most professionals think they’re ahead on AI.

They’re not.

Using ChatGPT faster doesn’t protect you.

Building with AI does.

0.04% of humanity are builders. The rest are experimenting.

AI doesn’t need to replace you.
It only needs to reduce the number required.

User or builder?

Read more here: https://t.co/Ftx4uDycaM

[image credit: @damianplayer]

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

Also available as a podcast:

Apple: https://t.co/1P29DQB5CW

Youtube: https://t.co/dyWViso1uL

Spotify: https://t.co/bOB7m6SOip

Amazon: https://t.co/UdNrp9joEp

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤’𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲.⁣⁣

It hallucinates.
It makes mistakes.
It still needs humans.

All true.

But this week markets repriced billions of pounds of value around one simple question:

What happens when the cost of producing software collapses?

@IBM dropped double digits in a day.
@TheBlockCo (@Jack) removed 4,000 employees and investors rewarded it.
SaaS businesses built on per-seat pricing are being reassessed.

Inside @YorkshireAI Labs, we are already modelling new ventures around radically lower engineering headcount.

Not theory. Capital allocation.

This week’s Sunday Signal breaks down what the markets are signalling.

The loom did not need to be perfect.
It needed to be cheaper.

Full issue here:

https://t.co/Y2Fug7LouT

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨.⁣
⁣
⁣This week @elonmusk did something most leaders talk about but rarely do.

He killed the @TheTeslaModelS & Model X.

Not because they failed.
Not because they stopped selling.
But because they were in the way.

Alex Ferguson understood this instinct better than anyone. He sold @JaapStam, David Beckham, @RvN1776 , even @Cristiano, not after decline, but at the peak. A year early rather than a year too late. The system mattered more than the star.

Tesla is claiming to do the same.

The Model S was credibility.
The Model X was spectacle.
Model 3 and Y are the system players.
@Tesla_Optimus is not a replacement. It is a formation change.

That takes nerve. But nerve is not the same thing as judgment.

The Innovator’s Dilemma is not solved by being ruthless. It is solved by being right about what people will actually value next. Kodak failed by clinging to the past. Tesla risks something different. Letting go of a working present before the future is ready to pay for it.

This week’s Sunday Signal is about that knife-edge.
When killing your heroes saves you.
And when it quietly destroys what made you great.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬 (𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐓𝐨)⁣

https://t.co/P93cFIhoY8

#MUFC #manunited #innovatorsdilemma #Tesla

[Adam Oxley @adam3oxley]

🗣️ “This I think is going to be one of the great stores in world sport”

Interview with @davidrichards from @YorkshireAI on the venture capital firm’s bid to buy the world’s oldest football club @sheffieldfc 👇🏻

@BBCSheffield | @footballheaven
https://t.co/qlOze6zZBa

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

This is where the game began.

Before global leagues, television deals or billionaire owners, football was written down here.
These are the original Laws of the Game, set out in #Sheffield in the 19th century. Not a marketing story. Not mythology. The foundation document of the world’s most popular sport.

Sheffield isn’t just another football city. It is the birthplace of the modern game.

That matters. Not as nostalgia, but as responsibility.

Cities all over the world spend fortunes trying to invent a story that gives them global relevance. Sheffield already has one. It’s authentic, provable, and woven into the fabric of the sport played by billions of people every week.

The question is whether we choose to protect, invest in and project that history, or allow it to sit quietly in archives while others build the future.

Heritage like this doesn’t preserve itself. It needs stewardship. It needs ambition. And it needs to be treated as a civic asset, not a footnote.

This isn’t just about football.
It’s about Sheffield’s place in the world.

And that is worth getting right.

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

𝐂-𝟑𝐏𝐎 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥.⁣

In 1977, when @starwars hit cinemas, C-3PO felt safely ridiculous. A humanoid robot fluent in millions of languages, capable of instant calculation and awkward social interaction. A fussy golden protocol droid designed for comic relief. It worked because it was impossible.

This week in the @yorkshirepost, I argue that in 2026, none of that feels implausible anymore.

Humanoid robots are no longer stage props or lab experiments. They are already working in factories and warehouses. The next step is the home. Not as novelties, but as cleaners, carers, assistants and eventually medical aides. Early versions will be clumsy and limited. But the direction of travel is unmistakable.

Project forward 10 to 20 years and the real question is not whether robots enter our homes, but what happens when they do. How ageing societies cope. How labour shortages are filled. How trust, care and work itself are redefined.

C-3PO turns out not to have been science fiction at all, but an early sketch of a future we are now building.

📰 Column in this week’s Yorkshire Post

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

#Sheffield gave the world football.

And then forgot to defend it.

This week I went public about something that should shame us all:
The world’s oldest football club, founded in 1857, is being allowed to drift into irrelevance while other cities monetise a story that began here.

My group made two bids for Sheffield FC - The World’s First Football Club.
Serious bids. Properly structured. Fully funded. Backed by patient capital measured in the hundreds of billions.

Not speculation. Not leverage. Not hype.

Both were rejected.

This was never about “buying a club”.
It was about anchoring long-term institutional investment into South Yorkshire using football heritage as the platform:
jobs, tourism, regeneration, a Home of Football museum worthy of the name, and a stadium that reflects the scale of the story.

If this were the United States, Sheffield would be a pilgrimage site.
Instead, we’ve hidden the origin story of the global game in plain sight.

In the same week, something else became undeniable.

🤖 Humanoid robots are no longer a future problem.
They are being priced like family cars and designed for kitchens, care and domestic life. This decade, not the next one.

🏔️ And Davos?
Still congratulating itself in a Swiss bubble while the real work happens elsewhere.

Three stories. One thread.

Progress doesn’t come from panels, branding or nostalgia.
It comes when capital, capability and heritage are aligned with intent and backbone.

Sheffield now has a choice.
To treat its football legacy as the global asset it is.
Or to let others tell, own and monetise the story instead.

Robots are coming whether we’re ready or not.
Davos will carry on regardless.
But football’s birthplace only gets one chance to decide whether it matters.

Issue 38 of The Sunday Signal is live.
Read it. Argue with it. Share it.

#SundaySignal #Sheffield #HomeOfFootball #Leadership #AI #HumanoidRobots #Capital #Heritage #swfc #sufc #sheffieldfc #homeoffootball

https://t.co/JrE0HsJ4kV

[Adam Oxley @adam3oxley]

Venture capital firm @YorkshireAI claims it’s had two bids to buy the world’s oldest football club @sheffieldfc rejected, pledging “once in a generation” investment worth “hundreds of billions”.

Read more here 👇🏻

@BBCSheffield | @footballheaven
https://t.co/ETfIhpiEHN

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

In my column in this week’s @yorkshirepost, I argue that AGI is coming. Not the “AI” we talk about today, which is really machine learning, but something far more consequential.

Artificial General Intelligence means systems that can generalise, reason across domains and be trusted with real responsibility. The upside is enormous. Faster scientific discovery. Breakthroughs in medicine and energy. Productivity gains that could reshape regions like ours.

But power cuts both ways.

Alongside the opportunity sits real risk. Not science fiction, but the danger of systems that are powerful, autonomous and misaligned with human values. We have been here before. Social media was waved through with “don’t worry, we’ve got this”. Regulation came late. Society paid the price.

This week’s column explains why AGI offers extraordinary promise, but also why we are not ready for it yet.

#ai #AGI

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

This is what it looks like when South Yorkshire steps into the capital markets with purpose.

Together with @olivercoppard and @SouthYorksMCA, we took our founders to the @LSEplc through @YorkshireAI and The Digital Forge CIC, placing South Yorkshire innovation in front of investors who deploy serious capital.

This is South Yorkshire’s moment.

#DigitalForge #YorkshireAILabs #SouthYorkshire #SYMCA #OliverCoppard #LSE #DeepTech #HardTech #Reindustrialisa

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

A big day for Yorkshire’s tech ambition.

The @yorkshirepost business front page sets out our plan to build Yorkshire AI PLC and position the region as a centre for practical AI.

We are currently Lift Global Ventures plc on AQSE (LFT). At the AGM we will seek approval to move to the new name and ticker TYKE as we launch a focused strategy built around applied AI.

Working alongside @YorkshireAI, our goal is clear.

Back serious AI companies that solve real problems and anchor that capability here in Yorkshire.

Proud to see this vision front and centre today.

#YorkshireAI #AI #PracticalAI #AppliedAI #TechUK #Innovation #Yorkshire #AQSE #TYKE #LFT #AItechnology #AIstartups #VentureBuilding #YorkshireTech #ArtificialIntelligence

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

Anyone who has seen the Hale and Pace “Yorkshire Airlines” sketch will remember Captain Boycott’s verdict on the wider world:

“𝗜𝗳 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲, 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.”

It is a brilliant line and a pretty good summary of how the rest of the country thinks we see ourselves.

The reality is a bit different.

We are working on the launch of Yorkshire AI PLC, a listed platform for practical, applied AI. The company is currently Lift Global Ventures plc, listed on the Aquis Exchange Growth Market as LFT, and we will be asking shareholders to approve a rebrand to Yorkshire AI PLC with the aptly named ticker TYKE.

Yes, we are proud to be Yorkshire-based.

No, we are not only interested in what happens inside the county lines.

Through our close relationship with Yorkshire AI Labs LLP, we want to back serious AI companies that solve real problems for industry, wherever the opportunity is, while anchoring capability and momentum in Yorkshire.

Captain Boycott might not approve of anything “outside Yorkshire”.

Yorkshire AI PLC is here to prove that Yorkshire can build and back world-class AI that reaches far beyond it.

Read more about the launch here in (of course!) The @yorkshirepost

https://t.co/x4B1wR90aQ

#Yorkshire #GeoffBoycott @GeoffreyBoycott @FredBoycott

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

Big news. I have stepped in as Executive Chair of Yorkshire AI PLC.

We are currently Lift Global Ventures plc on AQSE (LFT) and will seek approval to move to TYKE as we launch a new strategy focused on practical, applied AI.

Excited for this next chapter with @YorkshireAI.

https://t.co/fJrZLdGC0C

[David Richards MBE @davidrichards]

My column in this week's @yorkshirepost argues something the City was reminded of last week:

𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲.

When @SouthYorksMCA Mayor @olivercoppard opened the @LSEGplc alongside The Digital Forge CIC and @YorkshireAI, founders from Exciting Instruments, OLO Robotics, FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics and DigitalCNC stood on the balcony where Britain’s biggest companies begin.

For those few minutes, the distance between Sheffield and the Square Mile disappeared.

Not symbolically. Practically.

This week’s column explores why visibility changes everything, how seeing the inside of the capital markets removes the psychological barrier that stops too many British founders from thinking big.

I expand the story in this week’s Sunday Signal, along with two more pieces:

• Why Britain must reconnect ambition to its public markets

• What McKinsey’s State of AI 2025 tells us about the next decade of intelligent work

If you want to read the full edition before the LinkedIn version goes live on Sunday, you can get it now on @substack:

👉 Read The Sunday Signal first on Substack: https://t.co/cugNb3KPRO

𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸.
𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁.

#SouthYorkshire #LondonStockExchange #DigitalForge #YorkshireAI #UKTech #Innovation #AIM #AQUIS #LSE #CapitalMarkets #PublicMarkets #Founders #Entrepreneurship #AdvancedManufacturing #DeepTech #AI #AIFuture #AITransformation #Leadership #EconomicGrowth #Reindustrialisation #TechEcosystem #UKBusiness #Startups