PRESS DIGEST- Financial Times - Jan 13

Jan 13 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Headlines

- UK pledges huge increase in computing capacity to build AI industry

- Billionaire Issa brothers' EG Group readies $13 bln US IPO

- Britain's chemical industry dying out, says Jim Ratcliffe

-British Steel blunder forced Scunthorpe blast furnace closure

Overview

- British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will say on Monday he wants the UK to become the world leader for artificial intelligence, promising to create special zones for data centres and encouraging more graduates to study technology-focused courses.

- Private equity-backed petrol station company EG Group has fired the starting gun on a stock market listing in New York, expected to come as early as this year, with the IPO valuing the business at about $13 billion.

- Britain's chemical industry is heading towards extinction due to a combination of soaring energy prices and carbon taxes, according to Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire owner of the petrochemicals group Ineos.

-British Steel was forced to close one of its two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe last year after using the wrong kind of coal, in the latest sign of the crisis enveloping the Chinese-owned group's UK operations.

(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)

((globalnewsmonitoring@thomsonreuters.com))