America’s tech giants cautiously commit to Brexit-bound Britain

THE future does, after all, belong to barista stations, sun loungers and nap pods. Since the vote to leave the EU on June 23rd there have been fears that London’s position as Europe’s tech capital is under threat. But recent announcements by America’s biggest tech companies have offered some reassurance—as has, oddly, the election of Donald Trump.

Apple kicked off on September 26th, confirming that it would consolidate eight sites in Britain into one new office in the redeveloped Battersea Power Station in south-west London (pictured). About 1,400 existing employees will move there; the half-million square feet of space could eventually absorb twice that number. On November 15th Google confirmed plans to build sprawling new headquarters alongside King’s Cross station and said it would create 3,000 new jobs in Britain by 2020. The next week Facebook announced that it would enlarge its British workforce by half, to 1,500, when it opens its new London office next year. Then IBM said it would unveil four new data centres in Britain, tripling its capacity for cloud services in the country and creating “hundreds” of jobs.