LONDON: British house prices rose by more than expected in November and for a fifth month in a row, mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.
House prices rose 0.5 percent month-on-month after a 0.3 percent rise in October, Halifax said, topping the consensus in a Reuters poll of economists for a 0.2 percent rise.
But house price growth slowed on an annual basis to 3.9 percent in the three months to November, following a 4.5 percent rise in October.
“The imbalance between supply and demand continues to support house prices, which doesn’t look like changing in the near future,” Russell Galley, managing director of Halifax Community Bank, said.
Other data suggest the housing market is slowing. Nationwide, a different mortgage lender, has reported a weaker pace of house price growth recently and the Bank of England has said mortgage approvals have fallen to a more than 1-year low.
The figures come two weeks after finance minister Philip Hammond delivered a budget that included measures to help first-time buyers and spur more housebuilding.
“Even if successful, the chancellor’s measures to boost house building in the budget will take time to have a significant effect so are unlikely to markedly influence house prices in the near term at least,” Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club consultancy, said.
He added that house prices are likely to rise between 2 and 3 percent in 2018.
UK house prices rise by more than expected for fifth month in November
UK house prices rise by more than expected for fifth month in November
PIF’s Humain invests $3bn in Elon Musk’s xAI prior to SpaceX acquisition
JEDDAH: Humain, an artificial intelligence company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, invested $3 billion in Elon Musk’s xAI shortly before the startup was acquired by SpaceX.
As part of xAI’s Series E round, Humain acquired a significant minority stake in the company, which was subsequently converted into shares of SpaceX, according to a press release.
The transaction reflects PIF’s broader push to position Saudi Arabia as a central hub in the global AI ecosystem, as part of its Vision 2030 diversification strategy.
Through Humain, the fund is seeking to combine capital deployment with infrastructure buildout, partnerships with leading technology firms, and domestic capacity development to reduce reliance on oil revenues and expand into advanced industries.
The $3 billion commitment offers potential for long-term capital gains while reinforcing the company’s role as a strategic, scaled investor in transformative technologies.
CEO Tareq Amin said: “This investment reflects Humain’s conviction in transformational AI and our ability to deploy meaningful capital behind exceptional opportunities where long-term vision, technical excellence, and execution converge, xAI’s trajectory, further strengthened by its acquisition by SpaceX, one of the largest technology mergers on record, represents the kind of high-impact platform we seek to support with significant capital.”
The deal builds on a large-scale collaboration announced in November at the US-Saudi Investment Forum, where Humain and xAI committed to developing over 500 megawatts of next-generation AI data center and computing infrastructure, alongside deploying xAI’s “Grok” models in the Kingdom.
In a post on his X handle, Amin said: “I’m proud to share that Humain has invested $3 billion into xAI’s Series E round, just prior to its historic acquisition by SpaceX. Through this transaction, Humain became a significant minority shareholder in xAI.”
He added: “The investment builds on our previously announced 500MW AI infrastructure partnership with xAI in Saudi Arabia, reinforcing Humain’s role as both a strategic development partner and a scaled global investor in frontier AI.”
He noted that xAI’s trajectory, further strengthened by SpaceX’s acquisition, exemplifies the high-impact platforms Humain aims to support through strategic investments.
Earlier in February, SpaceX completed the acquisition of xAI, reflecting Elon Musk’s strategy to integrate AI with space exploration.
The combined entity, valued at $1.25 trillion, aims to build a vertically integrated innovation ecosystem spanning AI, space launch technology, and satellite internet, as well as direct-to-device communications and real-time information platforms, according to Bloomberg.
Humain, founded in August, consolidates Saudi Arabia’s AI initiatives under a single entity. From the outset, its vision has extended beyond domestic markets, participating across the global AI value chain from infrastructure to applications.
The company represents a strategic initiative by PIF to diversify the Kingdom’s economy and reduce oil dependence by investing in knowledge-based and advanced technologies.
