US tech giants announce £31 billion investment in UK AI infrastructure

US technology companies have announced a £31 billion ($42.3 billion) investment in Britain as President Donald Trump begins his second official visit to the country.

OpenAI, Nscale, and Nvidia announced the UK version of Stargate, a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure project, along with the first data centers to be established on the site of a former coal power plant in Northumberland, in the northeast of England.

The British government announced on Tuesday that this site near Blyth will become an AI Growth Zone, an area designated for AI data centers.

The site will also be connected to the nearby Newcastle University and a business park. The government stated that the site could bring 5,000 new jobs to the region.

These data centers will be powered by Nvidia chips, and the company announced it will send a total of 120,000 advanced GPUs (graphics processing units) to British data centers, financed by investments from Microsoft, Nscale, OpenAI, and CoreWeave.

Approximately half of these GPUs will go to Nscale, a British data center company that is building the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton, Essex, using 23,000 Nvidia chips in partnership with Microsoft.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Stargate UK, which will bring 8,000 GPUs to the country, will “accelerate scientific breakthroughs, increase productivity, and stimulate economic growth.”

The largest portion of the investment will come from Microsoft, which announced it will invest £22 billion in the UK over the next four years. Microsoft stated that about half of this figure will be allocated to capital expenditures for artificial intelligence infrastructure, while the remainder will support the company’s ongoing operations in the UK, including AI model development, its gaming division, and general product development.

“We are focused on British pounds, not empty technology promises,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Another tech giant, Google, inaugurated a new data center in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday and announced it would commit to spending £5 billion in the United Kingdom over the next two years.

AI cloud computing company CoreWeave will also invest £1.5 billion in the United Kingdom. This investment includes the expansion of a data center near Airdrie in North Lanarkshire, which is powered by renewable energy and uses Nvidia chips.

“This is a vote of confidence in the UK’s rapidly developing AI sector,” said UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall.

This wave of investment comes before the two countries sign the “Technology Prosperity Agreement” on Thursday, which commits them to closer cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum, space, and nuclear energy.

US artificial intelligence startup Scale AI will also invest over £39 million in the United Kingdom over the next two years, expanding its European headquarters in London and quadrupling its employee count by the end of next year.

Global asset management firm BlackRock will also invest £500 million in data centers in the United Kingdom, including £100 million for the expansion of a facility west of London. Oracle reconfirmed its previously announced $5 billion investment in the UK.

In addition to the technology deals, British pharmaceutical manufacturer GSK has pledged to invest $30 billion in the US over the next five years, including for a biologics facility, clinical trials, and research, and by adding advanced technology to its US manufacturing plants.