> in general Google satellite offices often house the engineers of acquired startups who don't want to move to the mothership

Would it be unfair to ask if (in this instance the UK's) satellite country taxpayers are subsidising corporate offices when the overall structures are arranged such that any overall corporation tax payable will be paid in the lowest-possible jurisdiction?

See - for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republi...

I'm sure representatives of those countries love to say so, especially when talking to third parties about their expertise in manufacturing: "Yes, here in Zhengzhou, CN we're leaders in electronics manufacturing - the iPhone is assembled here at Foxconn!"

However, Apple (headquartered in the US) loves to issue press releases describing how their products are "Designed by Apple in California[, USA]" even though a lot of work in the manufacturing, the software, and the design of subcomponents (or major components, I don't know how Apple is organized internally) are done in China, India and Vietnam as you listed.

I'd argue that in the same way that Shenzen and Zhengzhou are leaders in electronics assembly because the bulk of the iPhone and other products are built there, regardless of the location of the headquarters of Apple, so to can London claim to be a leader in AI because the researchers for DeepMind are located in London, regardless of who owns the DeepMind brand.

Buying a thing from another country doesn't make your location a leader in that thing.

China, India and Vietnam absolutely lead in manufacturing iphones, yes.

But in this case Deepmind's assembly (plugging in datacenter cables, etc.) is largely done in the US.