Britain spends £180M to work out what time it is

The British government is to pour £180 million into ensuring the UK keeps up with the times.

Don't worry, it's not another cringeworthy effort to get down with the kids by putting Keir Starmer on TikTok. Rather, DSIT is funneling the cash toward the National Physical Laboratory's (NPL) National Timing Centre (NTC) to continue building out "the UK's first nationally distributed timing infrastructure."

That in turn will ensure "an assured and trusted timekeeping source" to underpin the rollout of new technologies that require "precise and synchronized time."

These include the likes of 5G/6G applications, smart cities, and connected autonomous vehicles, according to a statement on the investment.

Keeping those uncrewed buses running on time will be an atomic clock network deployed across the UK "to create a resilient time source that is kept accurate using state-of-the-art cesium clocks; so accurate that it would take 160 ...