The US and Britain have agreed on a tech deal which promises billions of pounds to be pumped into the UK in investment by Big Techs like Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.
The ‘tech prosperity deal’ was announced by US President Donald Trump, who arrived in the UK for his second state visit on Tuesday night.
Britain’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said the agreement represented a “general step change” in Britain’s relationship with the US that would deliver “growth, security, and opportunity up and down the country”.
The deal includes the largest ever investment by Microsoft in the UK – a total of $30 billion – which would be used to fund an expansion of Britain’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure and the construction of the country’s largest AI supercomputer.
Other investments in the areas of AI, quantum computing and nuclear power comprise US-based Nvidia agreeing to deploy 1,20,000 advanced processors across the UK to help the British AI sector.
Nvidia founder Jensen Huang said, “Today marks a historic chapter in US-UK technology collaboration. We are at the Big Bang of the AI era – and the United Kingdom stands in a Goldilocks position, where world-class talent, research and industry converge.”
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There will also be a £1.5 billion investment from AI cloud computing company, CoreWeave, which will expand data centre capacity and operations, including a partnership with UK firm DataVita. Another £1.4 billion will come from Salesforce to make its UK business an AI hub for Europe, part of a £4.4 billion investment over the next five years.
More than £1 billion is promised by UK-based AI Pathfinder to deliver additional compute capacity, starting in Northamptonshire.
ChatGPT developer OpenAI has also agreed to partner with Nscale to deploy its Stargate data centre project at a new AI growth zone in the north-east of England with sites in Blyth and Cobalt Park near Newcastle.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said: “The UK has been a longstanding pioneer of AI, and is now home to world-class researchers, millions of ChatGPT users, and a government that quickly recognised the potential of this technology.
“Stargate UK builds on this foundation to help accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity, and drive economic growth.”
Meanwhile, Starmer, who is under pressure to amp-up his country’s economic growth, said the tech prosperity will “shape the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic”.
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