Daily Business / March 9, 2026 Pressure to exploit artificial intelligence is defying attempts, even by its creators, to control it, says IAN RITCHIE THE FOURTH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) Summit was held recently in India, following others in the UK, South Korea, and France, each one with a subtle change of title. The first, held at Bletchley Park in 2023, was called the AI Safety Summit, but the most recent was labelled the AI Impact Summit. It’s almost as if the safety as

Daily Business / July 19, 2026 Another ministerial promise to create business unicorns has failed to impress IAN RITCHIE SOON AFTER HIS RE-ELECTION in May John Swinney told the Holyrood Parliament that the government will “establish a High‑Growth Unit to identify and support businesses with the potential to grow, and to grow significantly.” A new team, said the First Minister, would support and coordinate policy, programmes and interventions for these businesses, a new unit t

Daily Business / May 26, 2026 A reluctance by UK investors to support long-term risk is a drag on Scotland’s growth firms, writes IAN RITCHIE SCOTLAND HAS EARNED a reputation as an innovative nation in terms of scientific research and the quality of its universities. It performs strongly in fields like AI, life sciences, photonics, space science, video games, renewable energy, informatics, and fintech. It creates many start-up and spin-out companies. But then it slips into th

Daily Business / May 4, 2026 Past strategies to grow the economy have been denied time and funding to take root, writes IAN RITCHIE IN LAUNCHINE THE SNP MANIFESTO, First Minister John Swinney, declared that ‘economic growth’ would be a central mission for a re-elected SNP government. He proposes a ‘high-growth unit’ to identify businesses that have the potential to achieve huge success and provide bespoke support to accelerate their growth. You’d be right for thinking we’ve b

Daily Business / April 7, 2026 Lawyers are forcing change on social media companies where governments have failed, writes IAN RITCHIE IN THE ONLINE WORLD, things can often change very quickly. Back in February I wrote about governments around the world making moves to deny young people access to social media platforms. Australia had already implemented its outright ban and others, such as France, Norway, China, and various US states, have since imposed restrictions on social

Daily Business / February 5, 2026 Better regulation rather than banning orders is the way to tackle harmful content, argues IAN RITCHIE THE MUCH ANTICIPATED Australian social media ban finally took effect in December. Children under 16 are now banned from having accounts on ‘age-related’ social media platforms; providers can be fined up to A$50 million if they fail to make reasonable steps to block minors from having accounts on their platforms. Although many other countries

Daily Business / January 4, 2026 Promises to build homes and infrastructure in the UK are dwarfed by China’s rapid rate of expansion, writes IAN RITCHIE SIR KEIR STARMER is planning his first visit to China later this month and it will surely be a very sobering experience for him. Far from being the poor, developing nation of 40 years ago, he will discover that China now has a standard of infrastructure that we in the UK can only dream of. By coincidence, I am in China right

Daily Business / December 7, 2025 Ministers need to reverse self-inflicted damage to the economy, says IAN RITCHIE W HEN THE CURRENT UK government overwhelmingly won last year’s general election it was on a manifesto which identified five key priorities or missions. The first and most important was to “kickstart economic growth” which it defined as “to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making e

Daily Business / November 9, 2025 Amid sky-high valuations for big technology stocks, IAN RITCHIE asks if expectations of the AI revolution are overdone B ACK IN 1999 , I was invited to attend a Credit Suisse investment conference in Cannes and I was happy to attend as I fancied a bit of sunshine on the Côte d’Azur. The World Wide Web had arrived in the mid nineties and by the end of that decade there was huge excitement about the opportunities for new businesses enabled by t

Daily Business / October 20, 2025 Holyrood’s next intake must look to small nations like Estonia and Denmark to solve Scotland’s inefficient public services, writes IAN RITCHIE A S POLITICIANS CAMPAIGN for the right to govern at Holyrood next year a key question they face will be how cost-effectively public services are being delivered by the devolved government. The answer, unfortunately, is quite poorly. Cuts and even higher taxes may be the preferred response, but one sol

Daily Business / September 18, 2025 Despite the city’s enviable record for innovation, value is often gained elsewhere, writes IAN RITCHIE W HEN I VISITED the Japanese research headquarters of Panasonic a few years ago in Osaka, I noted the roundel at the front of the building which featured statues commemorating a dozen famous scientist and engineers. The group included Newton and Einstein, but there was a key scientist missing – James Clerk Maxwell. When I mentioned this t

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / August 2025 W HEN THE NEW Labour government was elected a year ago, it declared that its top...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / July 2025 T HE WELL-KNOWN phrase “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance” is being...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / June 2025 T HE ARRIVAL of the internet in the mid-1990s completely revolutionised the world of...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / May 2025 WE HAVE ALL heard that Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to destroy lots...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / April 2025 A MAJOR STUSHIE is currently brewing between our government and the UK creative...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / March 2025 "THE LAW IS AN ASS, an idiot” said Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist, and that was absolutely...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / February 2025 THE TRUMP 2.0 administration has declared an ‘America First’ policy, inevitably...