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1:06BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Wake Up To Money from BBC Five Live. Hello, welcome. It is Wake Up To Money. As Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed it's going to cut those 4 ,000 jobs, we're going to have a look into the competition that's contributing to the carmaker's troubles. Much of it to do with an increased demand for Chinese EVs. They're pretty good. And the price obviously is the main factor, isn't it? The price or the offer. Plenty more to come. We're going to hear from the Mayor of the West Midlands. We're going to be speaking to those close to the car industry about all of this, getting the very latest for workers at JLR as well.

1:46Elsewhere, AI could see us find a cure for cancer in our lifetime. So says one of the world's most influential computer chip executives. We're going to hear more from the latest Big Boss interview podcast. And with Apple set to launch a new folding iPhone, our tech expert tells us whether this is the handset that breaks the mould. Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. Good morning to you. Welcome. It is Wake Up To Money on Tuesday morning, the 8th of September. It is just after five o 'clock. Lots to discuss today. If the news of what is happening at JLR has had a ripple effect into your lives in any way, If you work there, you work in the supply chain, you work in an area where there's been a reliance on employment from Jaguar Land Rover and the car industry.

2:36It may be that you've been in that world of buying a car in recent years and you want one of those big ones that JLR make and you've been looking at brands elsewhere. Have you got one of these Chinese brands that has been such a new competition for the likes of JLR as well? 85058. We're going to get into various few different aspects of that over the course of the show today. We're going to be bringing you more from the boss of Arm, that microchip company, who's been telling our economic senator, Faisal Islam, about the potential for AI. We hear lots of it every day, don't we? But some pretty stark comments from the boss of Arm, René Haas, who says that artificial intelligence has the potential to cure cancer within our lifetimes.

3:23Lots of other things that are making headlines in the papers to chew over as well. So stick with us for the next hour and beyond. Get in touch 85058. Join in the conversation with us. Micah Curry here with us as well. Vice President of Personal Finance at PensionBee. Micah, very good morning to you. Good morning, Sean. I mean, stark headlines, isn't it? Curing cancer, that's what AI can do. But when you've got the boss of a company like Arm saying something like that, It's a reminder, if you didn't think it already, that many in that industry think that this technology has the potential to just completely change our approach to so many things.

4:06Absolutely. We're already seeing that. It's transforming industries. It's transforming the economy. But there is an obvious tension here because while we all want the productivity and the advantage of AI, the question is moving now to how do we regulate this technology? But also, do we know how we can check the capabilities of AI? Do we allow ourselves to build AI when we don't quite know how to control AI? So lots of fundamental questions. Got Amelia Christie Miller with us as well, who's the founder of Bold Bean Company, a premium beans brand. Amelia, very good morning. Welcome to Wake Up To Money.

4:47Morning, Sean. How's it going? Going very well. Thank you, Amelia. Looking forward to learning a little bit about your business and getting your thoughts on all we're discussing on the show today. Just intrigued. We haven't spoken before to you about your business and all this, where AI sits in, you know, a bean business. People might think it's one of the oldest businesses going on the planet. But you look at the advances of the very latest technology. Are you, even though people might not instinctively associate a business like you are leading with something like that, does it still play a big role?

5:25Yeah, it's a huge role. I mean, we're quite a young company. We're five years old and AI is a huge part of our strategy. It's helping us move faster and build kind of talent that can perform at the rate of multiple heads. And it's been incredible for us. So it's a big part of our business. It's a big part of our investment strategy as well. So whilst compared to other companies, it's not a large amount of money, but we see it as a real superpower that we can leverage before bigger companies because we don't have the kind of bureaucracy that might stop it from being implemented. And, you know, one of the focuses that you've had as a relatively new business in a market that many might think is well established.

6:07But as we learn every day on this show, there's always new ways to get into these things. Being big on social media and having that as a driving force to tell your story and to getting people's mind. Is AI, the algorithms around that, the kind of social media you should be producing, either impacting what you're doing or what your competitors might be doing? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think that we haven't found a way to use it for kind of organic content yet without it feeling very AI led. And I don't think we'd ever want to do that. But for example, you know, we're constantly innovating and thinking about new product ideas.

6:47And within, you know, a minute you can come up with a new baked bean recipe, mock it up and send it out to consumers and see what they think of it whereas before that would have taken production it would have taken a photo shoot and someone crafting a specific label now you can do it in a flash and I think tiny things like that when you can use that makes a big difference at moving quickly and innovating quickly and if you're not using that does that mean you're falling behind well I mean I potentially I think so I think so it's it's hard to say. I think we tried to speak about it. I think there's a lot of fear out there.

7:25And, you know, particularly for our teams, we, there is a lot of fear. And, you know, we don't want this to replace jobs, we want this to enhance the ability of each of our team members. And I think that optimism is, is what we need, you know, whether it's across, you know, our business, and then across, you know, the global landscape, obviously, we need regulation. But I think it's really incredible about this cancer revelation because you know now it's not really a question of you know how do we regulate this it's like you know what is the cost if we don't find a way to make this work is it saving hundreds thousands of lives through not curing cancer 85058 we're going to be hearing more from the boss of arm a little bit later and his comments about what artificial intelligence can achieve, particularly in that medical world.

8:16Let's turn our attention again to a huge story of the week, and it will ripple along for much longer for many of those linked to Jaguar Land Rover. So let's have a look at the latest on these 4 ,000 job cuts. So the BBC understands one of the reasons for these cuts at Jaguar Land Rover is a massive hit to sales in China. We're going to be talking in a lot more depth later in the show about what is going on at JLR and the consequences of this announcement, what is really behind it. Let's hear now from the Mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, who spoke to Wake Up To Money's Will Harris on the potential of the job losses late last night.

8:58JLR are one of our biggest employers and they've got some of the most highly skilled jobs we've got in the West Midlands. So the loss of 4 ,000 jobs and obviously the impacts on families will be significant. That's why over the weekend I had discussions with the Business Secretary. I spoke to the Chancellor Exchequer, the Working Pensions Secretary. I also spoke to the Number 10 team and to Sharon Graham, the General Secretary of Unite. And I was able also to have a conversation with senior people at JLR too. So in response to those conversations, I work with my team at the Combined Authority to put a package of support in place, which we announced earlier today.

9:46And that package of support is targeted in supporting those employees that will take voluntary redundancy. And I want to ensure that we do as much as possible to help those people back into work and also as far as possible to retain them because of the skills they've got in the West Midlands. And that's really important because we are a centre of advanced manufacturing excellence and many of the skills that people have got at JLR are incredibly relevant and adaptable to skill shortages we have in aerospace and in other parts of the defence sector where advanced manufacturing and advanced engineering and the technical skills associated with them yet are much needed.

10:38So that's the mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, talking about this£500 ,000, what has been called rapid response package for workers. He talked about taking voluntary redundancy there and obviously has a focus on the West Midlands economy. So what that means for workers right around the country who may be impacted by JLR's announcement around the world, that may be a bit of a different matter. We can get into that more a little bit later in the show. So if you have questions about what's going on, do let us know, 85058. Micah, it's a reminder. I mean, JLR, I've had a tough old time of it in the last year, making headlines for cyber attacks and the consequences on the business there.

11:23But as we're sort of learning, and we'll get into more a bit later as well, it's about much more than that, isn't it? It's definitely about much more. It's a bit of a perfect storm. We've got US tariffs. We've got weaker demand from China, but also the tax that they place on the imports such as luxury goods. We've got that ongoing impact of the 2025 cyber attack and the huge investment that they need to electrify their business. But China is really interesting because it was once seen as a growth engine for luxury brands that could have seen Land Rover really benefit. But increasingly, their domestic manufacturers like BYD and Xiaomi are becoming so sophisticated at really competitive prices.

12:12So, their domestic market shares doubled. People are buying their cars. And it's also lowered the threshold at which it taxes luxury cars when they get imported. So, it makes those expensive imported Range Rovers so much more pricier. So really, loads of challenges, tariffs, the technology change, and the huge investment they need to become more electric and digital business. Remember, the last time they produced an electric SUV was back in 2018. So they do need to kind of really double down on investing. We'll get into that more a little later, 85058, if you have a view on that. Amelia, Am I right in saying, are you based in Barcelona?

13:00Yes, I am. So on the streets of Barcelona and around, has there been the proliferation of Chinese electric vehicles the way many will have seen on the streets of the UK? Yeah, it's really interesting. We bought a car last year and we were looking in the market and suddenly noticed these car brands popping up that I'd never heard of before. And I think in the Spanish market, There's not as much of a consumer culture around buying new cars. I think in the UK, you just notice it in the streets immediately. So many more new cars. We love our cars in the UK. So I think that they're not as commonplace, I think, as the UK, because there isn't this obsession with new.

13:43There's more of a secondhand car culture. And the brands simply haven't been around enough. But yeah, I have still noticed them popping up. It's fascinating that though. It's a healthy reminder. And actually a reason why many car companies do see the UK as such a key economy, because you've seen the difference firsthand. We love our cars. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll hear a little more a little later from folks of Cheshire about what they're seeing on their roads, the purchases they're making, the decisions they're making about which car they might go to next and some of the competition Mike are talking about there here in the UK.

14:20And we'll talk more about that competition in China. as well, the value of that JLR brand further afield and how that might have been hit. Let us get on to what artificial intelligence could achieve. It has the potential to cure cancer within our lifetimes, according to the chief executive of the multi-billion dollar Cambridge-based, of course, chip company Arm. Now, René Haas told the latest episode of the Big Boss Interview podcast, which is out today. Get it on your BBC Sounds and wherever you get your podcast feeds. He told that podcast that the use of AI in all aspects of life will have huge impacts on things including health, as well as the increasing use of robotics in our everyday lives.

15:04That may be more imminent than some might think. Here's five minutes from the podcast. Gives us a bit of a flavour of what he was talking about, where the Arm boss tells the BBC's economics editor, Faisal Islam, exactly what it is that the company does. Arm is business to business, meaning that we're not a consumer brand, we don't sell to consumers. Our customers are people in the semiconductor value chain or people in the electronics value chain. But the way to think about it is if you're building a chip and that chip is essentially inside of your vehicle, your data center, your automobile, your consumer appliance, that chip that makes all those things go, we are the company that supplies to those chip makers.

15:45So what does that mean exactly? We build a CPU, as I mentioned earlier, which is the brain, it's the essential element. But what we do is we design that brain and we license it to a company building chips. So it's the blueprint. If you're building homes, we're providing the blueprint to how you build that house. And then it's a very wide business model that essentially Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Tesla, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, it would be very hard to name a company that doesn't use us as opposed to who does use us so we are in every major device you can think of so what does the world look like in ten years time because of AI and what's the thing the public hasn't understood that you can tell us about what's yet to come gosh it's even hard to say what's going to look like in five years but I think in ten years artificial artificial intelligence will be ubiquitous into every market that we know, every vertical we can think of, whether it's health, whether it's education, it will be pervasive everywhere.

16:50It will have some pretty dramatic effects, I think, on how we live, play and work. Some jobs will go away, some jobs will be created that we don't know about, but at the heart of it will be AI. And you have experience, not just if you like, in the supply, the core supply chain of the chips that drive the AI, but also in the applications. Robotics, for example, is something that you're, you've been pushing hard. you know uh robotics and i think in 10 years will be a a huge change function we're the brain of all these modern robots and i do think in 10 years uh we will see physical ai robotics in a very large way whether it's around manufacturing cleaning services security infrastructure demanding building bridges doing repairs uh we will see actually actual actual i mean people talk about robots and they're not caught you're due to the sci-fi future of actual absolutely 100 as as workers physical workers fixing stuff cleaning stuff absolutely yeah 100 the the if you almost work backwards you'd ask well well why can that not happen yeah because artificial intelligence today one of the things that enables with robots is for the robots to learn that's a very key point because robots prior to ai were built for a certain purpose you see them in factories today they install a tire in a factory or inside a distribution area, they're the forklifts that move up and down.

18:19With artificial intelligence, these robots can see, learn, and essentially be reprogrammed for new tasks. So in the service industry, the robot that was programmed to make a bed can now make a bed, but can also learn how to arrange the towels in a room or clean the dustbins or whatever you want to go off and do. This is only enabled by AI. AI allows these robots to learn, these humanoids. So what will happen is you'll have these general purpose systems that because of AI will be able to learn and deliver new types of workflows. That is going to happen 100%. And then just tell us in terms of the application of AI scientifically, where could we go?

19:03What problems that are currently unsolvable could be solved? Yeah, I've always thought that the killer app for AI is health. Now drugs can take 20 years to be developed. 95 % of those R &D efforts fail. AI is going to not only shorten the amount of time that those drugs can be invented, it's going to shorten the amount of time that you test them. You'll start to replace some human trials with AI. But more importantly, you'll find a cure for cancer that today, you and I, other humans, not in our lifetimes. I believe in our lifetime AI will help cure cancer. Which brings me back to this country.

19:39I mean, Arm did fabulously well out of not manufacturing. You are now manufacturing. Government ministers have said, well, we should think about some of the startups that are involved in manufacturing in the UK. Is there potential? You're now using manufacturing of your own chips. Is there any potential for this to happen in the UK? Yeah, so again, just to clarify, our ships are being built by TSMC, so we're not doing it ourselves. No, I actually don't think so. I don't think it's necessary for the UK to put fabs. Fabs are very expensive. They take a lot of specialized workers. They take a lot of natural resources, and there's a pretty broad ecosystem for those.

20:24But can the UK do more around startup activity and things around that ecosystem, more design companies that are in the semi-space? Absolutely. Back in the day, there was a company called GE Plessy. That was a semiconductor company based in the UK. It was a joint venture from other companies and some smaller companies. It's not much here anymore. So I don't think you don't need to build, physically build the chips per se. But I think having people around that chip ecosystem would be good. So that is the ARM boss, the boss of the microchip company, multi-billion dollar company. are Rene Haas, who's been talking to Faisal Islam, their economics editor, about a variety of things, making a few headlines one way or another there.

21:09Mike, are there any signs, you know, when you hear one of the people at the forefront of this technology and the forefront of getting this technology out there, when he talks about things like chip shortages, slowing down the possibilities to cure cancer, I mean, what a headline that is. Is there a sense that that shortage is just going to continue now? That is the world we're going to be in, or is there going to be a ramp up of investment to be able to satisfy the desires of all these different industries that want to advance themselves as much as they can? Well, certainly, listening to him, we are clear that we need investment in chips and that this theme will continue carrying on.

21:57And the question is, will this increase in AI and the demand for chips to do these incredible things that he's talking about, like curing cancer, will that be inflationary or deflationary? That is a key question. And the other thing that strikes me, Sean, listening to him, is what a brilliant company Arm is. The pity is that 10 years ago, Arm Holdings, which is a UK company, as you mentioned, Cambridge-based, was acquired by Japan's SoftBank Group for a song for 24 billion pounds. Actually, now, 10 years later, that company is listed on the NASDAQ and it's worth 200 billion pounds. If it was still listed on the UK, it would be the second biggest company in the FTSE.

22:42And it comes back to that ongoing argument of these brilliant companies we have in the UK that we need to keep, that we need to nurture and that we need to bring to UK investors and savers. Because listen to all the brilliant, interesting work they're doing and how that company is absolutely revolutionizing the world. When you say if it was listed in the UK, it would be the second biggest company on the FTSE 100, that list of biggest companies that people can invest in here. Do you think it would have grown to the levels it has grown if it had stayed in the UK? Because wouldn't part of the thinking, some of the thinking we do hear about this is that you just can't get the investment that you need in the UK to be able to grow companies to that level.

23:30So we've seen business after business be bought out by companies around the world who decide to grow these companies in different ways and get investors from further afield. It's a fair argument because the reason ARMS was sold 10 years ago now in 2016 was because they wanted to embark on that period of heavy investment in the next generation of chip design and then unlock those profits in future years. And I think it is a bigger question that we need to invest. We need to be able to invest in those companies more because when they look promising, we need to be plowing money into them. Otherwise, we will see those opportunistic takeover bids time and time again when they are slightly less profitable.

24:17And we will lose brilliant companies to the US and to other international markets. Emilia, sort of trying to make a link here, not pushing it too hard, but I'm sort of aware that we were talking about a company worth a few hundred billion dollars and it's having left the UK and the question marks around that. I mentioned earlier you're based in Barcelona yourself. You're the founder, Emilia Christie Miller, people just tuning in, founder of Bold Bean Companies, premium beans brand that you may well see in your supermarkets. And you, Amelia, clearly have taken a bit of a view that you don't need to be fully based in the UK to grow a business here.

24:56Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're a fully remote team and we've really embraced that as part of our kind of culture philosophy. And, you know, I'm a firm believer that people, you know, if you trust your team, that they can work best where they live the happiest. And I think, you know, in my case, moving to Barcelona, it was a combination of factors. our beans are produced in Spain so being closer to the beans was very important um but also I've you know I've just become a mother and you know thinking about trying to build my business in the UK with the cost of child care with the resources available for um parents it's it's a lot easier in Barcelona and there's a lot more support for parents and that was definitely a deciding factor of you know what I'm traveling between the two where would I like to start a family where could I start a family and still lead this business and grow it.

25:48And that's kind of what tipped it for me. So I think that the UK do need to think about, you know, how we are supporting entrepreneurs at the kind of conception point as well, because we will lose talent and, you know, things like, you know, during my during the time I started this entrepreneur's relief, you know national insurance you know in our case e um epr tax which is around packaging you know all of these things have hit us as a small business and you know with ai coming on along it makes you know hiring and growing and even though we've grown incredibly in the last few years we've now got 27 people um it does make us more more fearful i suppose and i think the uk does need to think about how we support the the growth of these small businesses to begin with Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in there.

26:37You've laid out so much of what it's like to be running a business. Just firstly, congratulations on your new arrival. And it's amazing to hear so starkly, Amelia, that you're a founder of a business that's been going five years now. It's got on supermarket shelves. and one of the reasons, obviously you've talked about, you know, supply chain thing about the impact being in Spain, so much of it and that having an impact on the business, but childcare costs. I mean, can you just lay out a bit more how different it is being somebody, a parent, trying to run a business in Barcelona compared to in the UK?

27:18Yeah, so obviously I, you know, I took a shorter maternity leave. I wasn't able to take the full year that a lot of people do in the UK, which I would have loved to do, but I had a bean business to run. And, you know, that means that my child needed full-time care, it couldn't go straight into nursery. And, you know, full-time support here is, you know, 1 ,500 euros a month can be less as well. And, you know, that's less than a nursery would be in London. And I think that, you know, it's so crippling. And I've seen it with my sister, you know, who works and lives in London, it's so crippling to families in the UK, the cost of childcare, and they're just, they just really haven't been the support.

28:03And, you know, we're seeing that in the, in the birth rate as well. But I think particularly when it comes to people's careers, and, you know, me building this business, it was so important for me to not take my foot off the gas, we are, you know, growing incredibly. And I really, you know, I'm excited by that. And I and the support I've been given by being able to afford childcare here has been, you know fundamental to that transition to from being a founder to a founder parent and you know how's that transition you know something we've talked about a bit on the show over the years of you know you founded the business when you say new mom i'm guessing your child is less than five years old it's been more more recent yeah she's nine she's nine months old right it's nine months old so you you know you were thinking about this business growing this business for many years this child comes along, you're in Barcelona.

28:56How now is that world of being a parent and a founder, leading people at the same time? Have you felt there's much difference in your day? Yeah, I mean, it's really, it's particularly hard. And I think, I mean, it's amazing in so many ways, but I think it also crosses into, you know, matrescence, this term that's being used about women transitioning from woman to mother and, you know, the conditioning I experienced growing up around, you know, workload and mental load and career versus what my lived experience is now. I think it's hard for all women, regardless of whether they're entrepreneurs, but it's kind of exacerbated by the demands of the business, but me also wanting to be a good mom.