OpenAI and Nvidia to announce major UK data center investments during Trump visit

Leaders from OpenAI and Nvidia will travel to the UK next week, coinciding with President Donald Trump’s visit, and are set to pledge billions of dollars in support for data center investments in the country.

According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg, the two companies are collaborating with London-based data center firm Nscale Global on this project.

Sam Altman of OpenAI and Jensen Huang of Nvidia are part of a delegation of US executives expected to visit the country. OpenAI is prepared to spend billions of dollars as part of the plan.

American companies from various sectors are expected to announce tens of billions of dollars in investments in the UK during Trump’s visit next week.

Political and business leaders in Europe are calling for greater investment in facilities to support generative artificial intelligence, fearing slowing growth and the loss of technological ground to the US and China.

In January, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a plan to “accelerate artificial intelligence” by investing in data centers and chips. He also called for the creation of “AI growth zones” where data centers could receive fast-track planning approval and access to the electricity grid.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, plans to expand its commercial operations in Europe, where it faces much stricter regulations and greater skepticism toward Silicon Valley technology.

In May, the company announced OpenAI for Countries, a plan to expand its Stargate data center project abroad. In July, it announced it would be the anchor client for a new data center being built in Norway by Nscale, with financing from Norwegian investor Aker.

Nscale, which launched in May 2024, had previously committed to investing $2.5 billion in the UK’s data center sector over three years, including the acquisition of a facility in Loughton, Essex.

When Nscale announced the Loughton facility in January, it stated that the site could house up to 45,000 of Nvidia’s GB200 superchips, which are designed for artificial intelligence.

In April, Nscale was planning to raise $2.7 billion to build artificial intelligence infrastructure as part of a partnership with ByteDance, as reported by Bloomberg at the time.

OpenAI’s investments in Europe currently pale in comparison to its efforts elsewhere, including a 5-gigawatt commitment from its first international outpost in the United Arab Emirates. Bloomberg previously reported that the Stargate project in the US is targeting 4.5 gigawatts of capacity. For this effort, OpenAI and its partners, including SoftBank and Oracle, have committed to spending $500 billion.