US Tech Giants Race to Spend Billions in UK AI Push

Microsoft and Nvidia have unveiled plans to invest up to $45 billion dollars into the UK economy, in a move that will bolster the building of more data centers as well as research and development into artificial intelligence.

The investment comes as US president Donald Trump travels to Britain, where he is expected to announce a US-UK tech deal alongside UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

As part of the agreement, Microsoft has committed to invest $30 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years. The company claims this is the largest financial commitment it has ever made in the UK and will make up more than two thirds of the total investment announced into the UK this week, timed to Trump’s visit.

“We are focused on British pounds, not empty tech promises,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, told journalists in a virtual briefing ahead of the announcement today. “We will be good for every cent of this investment.” Half of the money will go to capital expansion— “all new money, all new investments,” Smith claimed—whereas the other half will go to efforts like a partnership with the data center business Nscale, to finance and use its facilities.

Nvidia, for its part, has pledged to spend up to $15 billion on AI-related R&D efforts in the UK. The chipmaker will not invest directly into building out the infrastructure, instead acting through its partners CoreWeave and Nscale.

This announcement comes alongside a new joint venture from Nvidia, Nscale, and OpenAI today, which plans to “strengthen the UK’s sovereign compute capabilities” through an AI infrastructure partnership called Stargate UK. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang traveled with Trump to the UK during his state visit this week.

“Stargate UK ensures OpenAI’s world-leading AI models can run on local computing power in the UK, for the UK,” said OpenAI in a statement. OpenAI will provide up to 8,000 GPUs in the first quarter of 2026 with the potential to scale to 31,000 GPUs over time. As part of the agreement, OpenAI says Nscale is set to significantly expand its capacity across a number of sites in the UK, including Cobalt Park in Newcastle, which will be part of a newly designated AI Growth Zone in the northeast.

“This historic commitment from Nscale shows how the UK can build the future of AI, together with our partners from the US,” Nscale CEO Josh Payne said in a statement. “It’s only by building world-class AI infrastructure that we will stay competitive in the global race.”

When asked to characterize Microsoft’s relationship with Nscale, Smith said simply, “We write the check, and they spend the money.”

Smith was quick to claim that the company did not get a request from the Trump administration to make an investment announcement. “We have had many conversations with the UK government, including with folks at Number 10, as you would expect, and those have been going on for months,” he said.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that he wants the UK to be the “destination of choice for companies at the forefront of technological change,” according to a joint press release issued Tuesday by Nscale. The announcements this week are part of a plan to harness homegrown talent and ensure that the UK can compete on artificial intelligence. He labeled these deals as a “decisive step” toward achieving that goal.

Just before Trump’s visit on Tuesday, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced a $6.8 billion investment in UK artificial intelligence efforts over the next two years. This will include funding for Google DeepMind, according to an interview the company did with BBC News. The company today also opened a $1 billion data center in the English county of Hertfordshire.

London, which is still Europe’s largest data center market, has been impacted by constraints in power availability and the lack of suitable land, according to data from real estate services firm CBRE.

The UK government deemed data centers critical national infrastructure in September 2024. However, opposition is brewing across the country as environmental, advocacy, and local residents groups complain about the environmental impact of power-hungry data centers.

Tech justice group Foxglove has called for an urgent review into the UK’s strategy on developing new data centers. “Following the queasy spectacle of CEOs from tech giants like Google, Meta and OpenAI queuing up to pay tribute at the White House this month, it’s little surprise to hear that the Trump-Big Tech axis is dead set on covering the UK in hyperscale data centres,” Campbell said in a written statement to WIRED. “Meanwhile, the UK will foot the bill for the colossal amounts of power the giants need—meaning sky-rocketing prices for households—as well as the water needed to keep them cool.”

Global Action Plan argues that the government has ignored the vast water and power consumption of hyperscale data centers, which are massive, highly automated data centers used for large-scale data processing, storage, and computing.

“More and bigger data centers mean more electricity demand and more pressure on water supplies,” says Oliver Hayes, head of policy and campaigns at Global Action Plan. “There will be a very significant impact on additional power demand. It will make it harder to reach our climate goals. It’s a trade-off, and at the moment they are not being held accountable for that trade-off.”