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BBC News

Big Boss Interview is where the most high-profile chief executives and entrepreneurs come to give you their insights and experiences of running the world's biggest and well-known businesses. The series is presented by Sean Farrington, Felicity Hannah and Will Bain, who you'd normally hear presenting the business news on BBC Radio 4's Today programme as well as BBC 5 Live's Wake Up To Money. Each week they'll be finding out just what it takes to run a huge organisation and what the day to day challenges and opportunities are. You can get in contact with the team by emailing bigboss@bbc.co.uk

Business Matters

Artificial intelligence will help cure cancer within our lifetimes, according to Rene Haas, chief executive of Arm, the Cambridge-based company whose chip designs sit inside almost every smartphone on Earth. There are more than 350 billion chips using Arm technology have shipped worldwide.

Haas says health is the "killer app" for the technology. Drugs can take 20 years to develop and around 95% of research and development efforts fail. He argues AI will shorten both the time it takes to discover new drugs and the time needed to test them, with some human trials eventually supplemented or replaced by AI modelling. "I believe in our lifetime, AI will help cure cancer," he tells BBC Economics editor Faisal Islam.

But the ambitions Haas describes run into a physical constraint: the world cannot manufacture enough chips to meet demand. He says the industry is in an "absolutely supply-constrained environment" and expects that pressure to continue. Memory chip prices have risen sharply, smartphones are becoming more expensive, and handset demand is under pressure. Asked whether the shortage is simply a temporary bump, he says: "If it's a bump, it's a really, really big bump."

The expansion of AI infrastructure is driving much of that demand. Large AI models require vast amounts of memory and computing power, while technology companies are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to new data centres. Haas says new semiconductor fabrication plants can cost tens of billions of dollars and take two to three years to build, limiting how quickly additional supply can come on stream.

That constraint also shapes his view of some of the more ambitious proposals for AI infrastructure. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have both talked about the possibility of putting large-scale data centres in space, but Haas says the immediate problem remains much closer to Earth: "We need more fabs before we can put a data centre in space."

Haas also says a correction in technology company valuations or investment levels is possible. He lived through the dot-com crash and draws a distinction between that period and the current AI boom, arguing that today's computing capacity is being heavily utilised rather than sitting idle. A fall in valuations, he says, would not necessarily mean a collapse in demand for AI, which he believes will become embedded across businesses and everyday technology.

Arm itself is also changing. After decades of licensing chip designs to other companies, it has begun supplying complete data-centre chips of its own. Haas says demand for its new Neoverse product rose from around $1 billion to more than $2 billion within five months, with customers including Meta, Oracle, Cloudflare and SK Telecom.

Presenter: Faisal Islam
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson

Arm CEO: AI Will Cure Cancer

(Episode 52) The chief executive of the world's largest water company has said Veolia would consider running Britain's water infrastructure if it were taken into public ownership, opening the door to a model in which the state owns the assets but private companies operate them.

Asked whether that could mean "nationalise the assets, and Veolia comes in to manage them," Estelle Brachlianoff said: "It could be an option, yes."

She described what that could look like in practice: Veolia running drinking water facilities, wastewater treatment plants and network management under contract, as it already does in other countries. What she ruled out was buying Thames Water. Pressed on the commercial opportunity, she said the ownership model was for government to decide.

Brachlianoff leads a business with around €45 billion in turnover and 220,000 employees worldwide, including 15,000 in the UK. She says drought and water scarcity cost the British economy more than £1 billion this summer, with two-thirds of the country affected by drought and some areas coming close to rationing.

Her warning is that this is not an exceptional summer but the beginning of a pattern. Climate change means shortages will become more frequent and more severe, she argues, and waiting until the next crisis will ultimately cost households and government more.

That leads to the question she is repeatedly pressed on: who pays?

Britain needs to fix leaks, increase resilience, deal with contaminants including PFAS "forever chemicals" and prepare for rapidly growing demand, while households remain under pressure and the Treasury faces competing calls on public money. Brachlianoff accepts that investment is needed, but argues that the answer is not simply to spend more. It is to spend more intelligently.

Instead of digging up and replacing entire stretches of leaking pipe, for example, she advocates using AI to pinpoint the precise sections that are failing. She also points to greater reuse of wastewater, noting that treated wastewater already provides around 75% of irrigation water in Jordan, alongside the possible expansion of desalination.

Her claim is that technology and efficiency could allow Britain to make its water system more resilient without water bills increasing as a proportion of household income. But she acknowledges that guarantee becomes much harder if the country waits until the next shortage before acting.

For Brachlianoff, water is increasingly a national security issue as much as an environmental one. She points to the Middle East, where desalination plants have appeared on military target lists and some Veolia facilities are now protected by Patriot missile systems. Britain's risks are less dramatic, but the underlying principle is the same: without secure water supplies there is no food production, no industry and no functioning economy.

And demand is about to become more complicated.

According to Veolia, by 2030, UK data centres are forecast to consume the equivalent of the combined water use of Birmingham and Glasgow. Brachlianoff says tensions between communities and data centres over access to water are already becoming political issues in parts of the United States.

Elsewhere, the environmental case becomes more contested. Veolia says it can now destroy PFAS - or "forever chemicals" contaminants to 99.9999%, but the question of who should pay for cleaning up decades of pollution remains unresolved. Brachlianoff says the cost will probably have to be shared between government, industry and consumers.

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson

Veolia CEO: We Can Help Run Thames Water If Govt Nationalise It

(Episode 51) Who should control Britain's biggest water company? Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, says he "completely agrees" with the Prime Minister that the industry, and Thames Water, needs greater public control. But he draws a clear distinction between stronger public accountability and public ownership, arguing that nationalisation or special administration could delay investment, increase uncertainty and ultimately leave taxpayers carrying the financial risk.

Thames spent more than £1bn more than it received last year, with the shortfall currently funded by creditors. Under special administration, Weston says that funding would instead have to come from government while a new owner was sought. Full nationalisation, he argues, would place Thames Water's decade-long infrastructure programme on the public balance sheet alongside defence, health and education. His preferred solution is the proposal from more than 100 creditors to write off around £9bn of debt, inject fresh equity and rebuild the company under a model that promises no dividends for at least ten years. He argues this private-sector restructuring can sit alongside stronger public oversight, clearer government direction, greater regional representation and a more company-specific regulatory regime.

The debate over ownership comes as Weston warns Britain faces a much bigger challenge. Drought, he says, is no longer an exceptional event but "the new normal". Despite an unusually wet January and February, no rain fell across the Thames Valley in July, exposing a shortage of water storage across the South East.

Thames has not built a reservoir since Farmoor B in 1977. A replacement scheme proposed around 2010 was rejected after the company failed to make its case successfully, and Weston believes the region would not be facing a hosepipe ban today had it been approved. The proposed Whitehorse reservoir near Abingdon remains in the planning process and is not expected to begin filling until 2038, with another three years needed before it reaches capacity.

Population growth, government housebuilding targets and the rapid expansion of data centres will place even greater pressure on supplies. Weston questions whether data centres should rely on drinking water for cooling, suggesting treated effluent from sewage works could provide an alternative. He also says households will need to become more mindful of how they use water, with government playing a greater role in encouraging behavioural change.

Weston also makes a notable concession about how the industry reached this point. Customers, he says, have "paid too little for water for too long". Thames operates 440 treatment works and a network stretching four times around the circumference of the Earth. Keeping bills low, he argues, meant insufficient investment in maintaining and modernising ageing infrastructure, although he accepts the company's current debt levels are unsustainable.

On pollution, Weston accepts Thames must improve but refuses to promise sewage incidents can ever be eliminated entirely. The company treats around 4.3 billion litres of wastewater every day and, he says, succeeds 99.5% of the time on average. Extreme weather, ageing infrastructure and illegal connections mean completely eliminating pollution incidents remains "very, very slim".

Presenter: Simon Jack
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson/Ollie Smith

00:00 BBC Editor, Simon Jack introduces podcast 
03:09 Chris Weston joins pod, explains Thames Water's situation
06:18 Bills were too low for too long.
09:32 Unrealistic targets, swage and pollution
12:31 Privatisation of Thames Water
14:50 What's on the table now?
17:28 Greater public control, special administration and nationalisation
28:41 Drought, reservoirs and the new normal
34:29 Staff abuse and his own pay

Thames Water CEO: We Welcome Greater Public Control, Not Nationalisation

(Episode 50) etoro customers are "definitely moving away from crypto," according to the company's founder and chief executive, Yoni Assia. After more than a decade at the forefront of digital assets, Assia says customers are increasingly shifting towards mainstream investing and cash savings, as etoro expands beyond its trading platform into broader financial services. The company, which manages around $20 billion in customer assets for more than 40 million registered users, is pursuing a UK banking licence, launching a Visa debit card and expanding into everyday banking services.

Assia also discusses how etoro balances that expansion with its continued offering of cryptocurrency trading. Alongside ISAs and long-term savings products, the platform continues to offer access to crypto assets. Asked whether it is appropriate to offer highly speculative crypto products alongside mainstream savings, Assia said he believes customers should have choice, while acknowledging that the crypto market is "a much less regulated" and "much riskier" ecosystem than traditional capital markets.

The conversation also covers the growth of meme coins. Assia says he bought Donald Trump's cryptocurrency after it was listed on etoro. Asked whether he had made or lost money on the investment, he said he had not checked. Assia also highlighted the scale of the market, noting that while there are around 40,000 publicly listed companies worldwide, roughly 40,000 new meme coins are created every day on the Solana blockchain. He contrasted the level of regulation and disclosure required of listed companies with that of meme coins.

Artificial intelligence is another topic discussed in the interview. Assia says etoro rebuilt its new app in six months using code written entirely by AI and believes the company's AI assistant is already capable of providing financial guidance that rivals many human advisers. He also discusses how AI could change the way people manage their money and how established financial institutions may need to adapt.

The interview concludes with Assia's view of longer-term changes in financial services, including what he describes as a $140 trillion intergenerational transfer of wealth from baby boomers to younger generations. He explains why he believes younger investors will increasingly use AI-powered financial platforms, while also moving towards more traditional savings and investment products as they accumulate wealth.

Presenter: Sean Farrington
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson
Editor: Henry Jones

00:00 Introduction
02:00 The shift from crypto to banking
06:40 The rebrand and building an entire app with AI
09:00 Customers moving away from crypto and the boom-bust cycle
13:30 Bitcoin, quantum computing and the AI threat
17:28 Trump's meme coin and the losses suffered by investors
21:52 The copy trading transparency problem
24:30 The cost of living and whether ordinary people can afford risk
27:30 AI versus the traditional financial adviser
31:40 The $140 trillion generational wealth transfer

etoro CEO: Our Customers Are Moving Away from Crypto

(Episode 49) Andria Vidler, the CEO of Allwyn UK - the operator of the National Lottery - has warned the British public risks losing it, unless it innovates. 

Allwyn took over the running of the National Lottery from Camelot in 2024, and it had pledged to double the amount if gives to good causes from 33 million pounds to 60 million pounds. But Vidler told Felicity Hannah that its future is at stake, if it doesn't continue to change and adapt at speed. 

Part of this is the UK launch of Powerball, the first time the American lottery has been offered outside the United States. Unlike EuroMillions, its jackpots are uncapped and can rise into the hundreds of millions. 

The interview also examines whether the National Lottery should be treated differently from other forms of gambling. Vidler rejected suggestions that draw-based games contribute significantly to gambling harm, arguing that waiting for a result removes the cycle of instant gratification associated with more addictive products. She also defended the lottery’s £500 weekly online deposit limit, saying most players spend nowhere near that amount and fewer than 2 per cent show any indication of problematic play. Allwyn has introduced over 100 new games in the last year.

Vidler has also called on the government to close a regulatory loophole which she says allows online prize draws to compete without paying lottery duty or contributing to good causes. Vidler claims that house raffles, car competitions and other online prize draws are “cloaking themselves in lottery disguise” and exploiting legislation intended for small society lotteries. “They will steal our lunch if we’re not careful,” she warned, arguing that Britain should return to a model centred on one National Lottery in order to maximise returns to good causes.

Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson
Editor: Henry Jones

00:00 Sean and Fliss introduce the pod
03:17 Andria joins BBI, discusses 2024 takeover
06:07 The Gambling Commission investigation
10:01 Good causes target and cost of living
14:42 Problem gambling and player protection
17:23 The shift to digital 
21:17 Powerball launch
22:38 Prize draw competition and the loophole
26:02 Future of National Lottery is uncertain if it doesn't innovate
32:45 Career, AI, cyber security and women in leadership

Allwyn UK CEO: Britain Risks Losing the National Lottery if it Doesn't Innovate

(Episode 48) The Halifax brand is being retired after more than 180 years — and Charlie Nunn says artificial intelligence is the reason why.

The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group told the Big Boss Interview that the way customers discover financial products has fundamentally changed. Increasingly, people are asking AI tools and large language models to find the best mortgage or savings account, making multiple banking brands less relevant in an increasingly digital world.

That shift is also reshaping the debate around bank branches. Nunn challenges one of Britain's most politically sensitive narratives, arguing that physical access to banking has never been greater once post offices, banking hubs, community bankers, ATMs and cash points are taken into account. While he acknowledges that many people feel left behind by branch closures, he says the way banking services are delivered is changing, with thousands of Lloyds colleagues now providing hour-long consultations to vulnerable customers in their own homes. Traditional branches, he believes, will survive for at least another decade, but what constitutes a "branch" is becoming increasingly blurred.

Nunn also argues that Britain has become too cautious. Regulation makes it harder and more expensive to lend than in many comparable countries, he says, while the economics of housebuilding no longer work in many parts of the country. The average first-time buyer is now 34, two-thirds take out mortgages lasting 30 years and the bank of mum and dad remains central to getting on the property ladder.

Some 13.5% of 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, a figure Nunn describes as "frightening" given the country's ageing population. If young people cannot build skills, save and buy homes, he warns, the long-term economic implications for Britain are significant.
Artificial intelligence, meanwhile, could transform banking over the next five years more than the previous 35, democratising access to investment advice and helping tackle fraud.

Presenter: Will Bain
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson
Editor: Henry Jones

Lloyds Banking Group CEO: The End of Halifax and the Future of Bank Branches

(Episode 47) AI and drone warfare will force a “complete reimagining” of how conflict risk is calculated and insured, the chief executive of Lloyd’s of London has warned, because traditional assumptions about how wars escalate may no longer hold.

Patrick Tiernan, who runs the 337-year-old insurance marketplace, told the Big Boss Interview that autonomous weapons and AI-driven decision-making could remove the warning signs and diplomatic pauses that have historically allowed insurers to adjust cover as conflicts intensify.

“When we talk about the way war is insured at the moment, it assumes that it’ll build up, that there’ll be breaks in there, and that you can increase the cover,” he said. “It’s very possible that won’t be the case as there is more drone warfare, more artificial intelligence in the decision-making. So we’re going to have to completely reimagine how we cover that.”

His warning comes as governments increase defence spending and NATO allies reassess their military commitments. Tiernan said Lloyd’s must ensure it has the capacity to insure growth in defence, energy and infrastructure, while being clearer about which forms of defence it supports.

He said the current risk environment is unlike anything in Lloyd’s history, with physical infrastructure, data and cyber systems, financial services and the international rules-based order all under pressure at the same time. “We are very underprepared for the risks we’re facing because we rely on things that maybe won’t be there tomorrow,” he said.

Tiernan also warned that the “protection gap” between economic losses and what is actually insured is widening. He said businesses and governments can no longer assume the state will step in when disaster strikes, arguing that high debt levels mean governments may not have the same financial firepower they had in the past.

He called on governments to spell out what they will and will not protect, so private capital can price the remaining risk. Businesses, he said, are being “wilfully ignorant” if they fail to understand their exposure.

A major state-backed cyberattack remains one of Lloyd’s realistic disaster scenarios and could be “deeply crippling” to the global economy, Tiernan said. He added that take-up of cyber insurance remains too low, particularly among European SMEs, despite policies offering prevention and resilience support as well as financial cover.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Tiernan said Lloyd’s drew on lessons from previous Gulf shipping disruption and the Black Sea closure during the Ukraine war. Insurance capacity remained available, he said, with crew safety rather than the price of cover the main factor affecting shipping.

He also argued that the insurance industry, and perhaps the wider economy, has lost some of its appetite for calculated risk since the financial crisis. Pointing to opportunities in undersea data centres, autonomous vehicles and AI-led drug development, he said: “The risk of missing out is greater than the risk of overstepping.”

On climate, Tiernan said Lloyd’s has added US flood, severe convective storm and fire to its realistic disaster scenarios, with flood, fire and drought all on an upward trajectory. He defended Lloyd’s continued insurance of legal, unsanctioned fossil fuel activity, but said the market should use its capital to support new energy technologies including small modular reactors, nuclear fusion and renewables.

Lloyd's of London CEO: Autonomous Weapons Are Rewriting War Risk

(Episode 46) Britain should stop taxing workers and start taxing robots, according to the chief executive of one of the country's biggest recruitment firms, who says the UK's tax system is pointing in entirely the wrong direction at the worst possible moment.

James Reed, CEO of Reed Recruitment, told the Big Boss Interview that the government is taxing employers who hire young people "to pick up beer glasses in gardens" whilst letting AI and automation — the technologies actively replacing those workers — go entirely untaxed. His mantra: "Back humans, tax robots." And he wants the next prime minister and chancellor to make it the centrepiece of a wholesale redesign of how Britain raises revenue.

Reed argues this is not a fringe idea but an inevitability. "Taxation follows wealth," he said. "When you see these companies being valued at over a trillion, that's where the action is. So that's where the taxation should follow." He envisions transaction-based levies on AI services and automation — "rather like VAT" — or surcharges on businesses that replace human workers with machines. He acknowledged it would "take some designing" but said the principle is simple: the robots are generating the wealth, so the robots should be taxed.

The urgency, he said, is driven by the collision of two forces. The first is the October 2024 budget, which Reed described as a "historic mistake." The £25 billion employers' National Insurance increase was, in his words, "a tax on jobs" that caused clients to cancel hiring within a week and has driven businesses towards automation and offshoring at precisely the moment AI makes both easier than ever. 

The second force is AI itself. Reed warned it is "burning through entry-level jobs," destroying opportunities for young people at a pace the country is not prepared for. He said Britain is behaving like "rabbits looking into the headlights" of these changes, with no collective strategy for what happens when the jobs disappear — and with them, the income tax, employees' National Insurance and employers' National Insurance that fund public services.

Reed was unequivocal about the political response required. Asked whether there should be a new chancellor, he said: "Yes, absolutely. The incumbent made the decisions that caused the damage." He called the current period one of the toughest in his 30 years as chief executive, ranking alongside the financial crisis of 2008 and the early days of the pandemic — but worse in one respect. "In 2008 and 2020, there was a sense that we need to sort this out. I don't see that at the moment."

The consequences are already visible in the data. Vacancy numbers on reed.co.uk have been in decline for three years. National statistics show vacancies have fallen from over a million to around 700,000 — fewer than before the pandemic. But it is the graduate jobs market that tells the starkest story. Graduate vacancies on Reed's platform have collapsed from 180,000 to 50,000 in four years, and are still falling. The hardest-hit group is 21 to 25-year-olds, many of whom emerged from university with degrees that have, in Reed's words, "no currency out there in the world."

This led Reed to question the value of university itself. He said many graduates feel "mis-sold," that apprentices in their early twenties are now "way ahead" of their university-educated peers, and that the idea of half the country's young people attending university is "very outdated." Britain, he said, has been "ridiculously snobby about trades" — which he believes are the jobs of the future. He proposed a "three-lane superhighway" in which a third of school leavers go to university, a third do apprenticeships, and a third go straight into work with a short-term employer subsidy to help them get started.

Presenter: Sean Farrington
Producer: Olie D'Albertanson
Editor Henry Jones

Image Courtesy of Reed Recruitment

03:05 A real moment of opportunity and good opportunity for a reset.
04:18 The need for a new Chancellor
10:25 The need to change course on taxation around jobs 
12:05 AI is burning through entry-level jobs 
13:09 One of the toughest periods since 2008 (the financial crisis) 
13:47 Back humans, tax robots 
23:03 Is University still worth it? 
35:40 Applicants being ghosted by employers
41:00 Spelling mistakes on CVs now positively sought after
44:01 Big tech companies need to pay more tax: "back humans, tax robots" pt 2

Reed Recruitment CEO: Back Humans, Tax Robots

(Episode 45) Mondelēz International, the company behind Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone and Ritz, has warned that future European investment could bypass the UK if regulatory instability persists.

Chief executive Dirk Van de Put says the UK is the company’s second-biggest market globally and contributes more than £2.3 billion to the economy each year, supporting 12,000 jobs and spending £1.3 billion with more than 1,000 UK suppliers. But he is sharply critical of food and drink being left out of the government’s industrial strategy, despite representing around a quarter of industrial turnover. He says the sector is being taken for granted and warns that repeated policy shifts have already cost Mondelēz £40 million in reformulation work that was then superseded by further changes. Asked whether future investment could go elsewhere in Europe because of government policy, he says: “Yes, of course.”

Van de Put also defends Mondelēz’s decision to continue operating in Russia, despite acknowledging the company pays taxes there that contribute to the war in Ukraine. He argues that withdrawal would have put 3,000 employees out of work, left 10,000 farmers without a buyer, and likely handed confiscated plants to Kremlin-linked interests that could generate even more money for the Russian state. He says: “I’m not pleased about that,” but maintains that staying was “not the most popular decision” but “the right decision”. 

The conflict in Ukraine is not theoretical for Mondelēz. Van de Put reveals that the company’s office building in Ukraine was hit on the morning of the interview, and its factories have been struck and rebuilt twice at a cost of tens of millions. He also said staff were evacuated to neighbouring countries during the worst of the fighting. 

More broadly, he describes the past two years as the toughest of his 30-year career. Wars, inflation, oil prices, packaging costs, fertiliser markets and weak household budgets have created cascading pressure across the business. He says global consumer confidence is among the worst he has ever seen.

The cocoa supply chain has also suffered its worst disruption in at least 40 years. Concentrated production in Ghana and Ivory Coast, endemic crop disease and back-to-back extreme weather events drove an 18 per cent fall in harvests and sent prices soaring. Two stronger crops have eased the immediate pressure, but Van de Put says the structural fragility remains and the sector needs long-term intervention from governments, companies and farming communities.

He also pushes back against the backlash against processed food, saying: “The world cannot live without processed foods.” He argues that processing is essential to food preservation and global food security, though he accepts the industry must continue to make products healthier.

On GLP-1 weight loss drugs, Van de Put says Mondelēz is not yet seeing a material impact, but expects the trend to reshape consumer habits over time. He sees the drugs as broadly positive and says the company is adapting through acquisitions in protein and health snacking, including Grenade, Clif Bar and Perfect Snacks, as well as developing products with more protein, fibre and cleaner ingredients.

Presenter: Leanna Byrne
Producer: Olie D’Albertanson 
Editor: Henry Jones

0:00 Will and Leanna intro the podcast 
03:01 Dirk Van de Put interview begins / His background as a vet
08:53 Forces shaping the business: wars, tariffs, climate, cocoa, regulation, GLP-1 drugs
13:25 Europe as a difficult market / Consumer confidence at historic lows16:28 Continuing operations in Russia / Moral decisions & taxes funding the war
21:51 Cocoa supply chain crisis, El Niño & prices
24:27 Consumer pricing, shrinkflation & recipe integrity
29:30 UK industrial strategy: food industry left out
33:00 Future investment in UK & HFSS regulation
36:07 Education vs. regulation on obesity & weight loss drugs
41:48 Acquisitions (Grenade, Clif Bar) & protein/fibre trends
43:50 Chocolate tasters & "tasting Neanderthal" confession

Mondelēz CEO: We're Questioning Our Future UK Investment

(Episode 44) The next great wave of demand for artificial intelligence chips could come not from chatbots, but from humanoid robots caring for ageing populations. That is the prediction of Wendell Huang, chief financial officer of TSMC, the Taiwanese company that manufactures the world’s most advanced semiconductors. As countries grapple with rapidly ageing societies, Huang sees robot carers and autonomous vehicles as major commercial frontiers beyond the current boom in AI data centres.

TSMC is already struggling to keep pace with demand. Huang says the company is expanding as fast as it can across Taiwan, the United States, Japan and Germany, but new fabrication plants take two to three years to build and a further year or two to reach full production. Despite concerns about overinvestment, he rejects the idea that AI is a bubble, describing it as a “multi-year structural megatrend” backed by the financial strength of the world’s biggest cloud and technology companies.

The most advanced chips will continue to be ramped up in Taiwan, Huang says, because research and manufacturing teams need to work in close proximity. Recreating Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem in the US will take at least five to ten years, even though TSMC’s Arizona lab has now matched the yield of its mother lab in Taiwan.

Huang is also pointed about Elon Musk’s stated ambition to manufacture chips. “There’s no shortcut in semiconductor manufacturing,” he says, arguing that government subsidies alone cannot guarantee success in the foundry business. TSMC’s advantage, he suggests, rests on technology, execution and nearly four decades of customer trust.

Geopolitics remain unavoidable. TSMC sits at the centre of US-China tensions over technology and Taiwan, but Huang declines to be drawn on the politics, insisting the company builds capacity according to customer demand rather than government instruction. On export controls and reports of chips reaching China through third parties, he says TSMC has robust compliance systems, while acknowledging the limits of tracing products once they leave its facilities.

Presenter: Suranjana Tewari
Producer: Jaltson Akkanath Chummar& Olie D'Albertanson

Picture Courtesy of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, LTD

3:10 The AI chip landscape
5:21 Is the AI boom a bubble?
7:28 Humanoid robots and the future of AI demand
8:14 Will AI replace jobs?
10:25 Will cutting-edge chips stay in Taiwan?
13:27 Huawei and Chinese chip ambitions
19:08 TSMC on receiving US government subsidies
19:27 Elon Musk's chip-making ambitions
20:45 Middle East, supply chains and stockpiling
21:35 Talent challenges and cultural adjustment in Arizona

TSMC: Humanoid Robots Will Look After the Elderly

The US president, Donald Trump, moves to revoke the approval of New York City’s congestion pricing programs. We hear from one of the architects of the congestion charge policy in the city.

Microsoft has unveiled a new quantum chip called Majorana One, which it says will help the company create computers able to solve meaningful industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.
 
And Roger Hearing discusses how a local government in the Philippines has come up with an unusual way of combating dengue fever by announcing a payment for every five mosquitoes caught and brought in.

We will be joined throughout the programme by two guests on opposite sides of the world - Karen Percy, Senior freelance reporter in Melbourne, Australia, and Emily Peck, Axios Markets Correspondent and co-host of the Slate Money podcast, who's in New York.

Trump slams brakes on New York congestion charge

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