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Former prime min­is­ter Rishi Sunak has been appoin­ted as a senior adviser to both Microsoft and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence start-up Anthropic, becom­ing the latest Brit­ish politi­cian to take a Sil­icon Val­ley role.

Sunak, who will remain an MP, worked with both tech groups as prime min­is­ter, set­ting up an AI safety sum­mit in 2023.

The former Con­ser­vat­ive leader yes­ter­day said he had “long believed that tech­no­logy will trans­form our world”.

“In my role as a senior adviser, I want to help these com­pan­ies ensure that this shift deliv­ers the improve­ments in all of our lives that it can,” he added.

Sunak’s twin appoint­ments mean he will be advising rivals in the push for AI break­throughs. Microsoft is work­ing on its own AI tools and is a key backer of OpenAI, Anthropic’s chief com­pet­itor.

He fol­lows former deputy prime min­is­ter and leader of the Lib­eral Demo­crats Nick Clegg in tak­ing a post at a lead­ing tech com­pany. Clegg was Meta’s pres­id­ent of global affairs until this year.