Barnsley rebranded UK’s first ‘tech town’ as US giants join AI push

Minister announces Microsoft, Cisco and Adobe to help apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses

In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan the place of possibilities". Now it is trying a different image: Britain's first tech town".

The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for how AI can improve everyday life" in the UK.