UK HMRC's customer system to cost £1.7-4.4bn — more than its sovereign AI fund
georgemillo · x · 2026-11-01
- Quoting @ColeFusionHQ: HMRC's new customer system is contracted at somewhere between £1.7bn and £4.4bn — a ±£2.7bn swing, and multiples of the UK's entire £640m sovereign AI fund.
- @alexanderrX notes that hiring Britain's top 50 engineers at £300k/year for 15 years would cost just £225m — cheaper and likely better, with leftover budget enough to fund a top European AI lab.
- The takeaway: this pricing was absurd pre-AI and remains absurd post-AI, exposing how detached government software procurement is from real costs.
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