The U.K. government said thousands of new jobs and billions of pounds of investment in AI have been announced across the U.K. as a driver of growth.
The government noted that international companies are also hosting new center in the U.K. and British companies are increasing investment – with £24.25B in private investment committed in this last month alone.
Companies like Vantage Data Centers and Microsoft (MSFT) are also collaborating with the government to deliver another AI Growth Zone. Set in South Wales, £10B of investment will unlock at least 5,000 jobs, including in industrial heartlands like the former Ford Bridgend Engine Plant.
“We’re proud to be investing in South Wales and playing our part to deliver this new AI Growth Zone,” said Hugh Milward, vice president, External Affairs, Microsoft U.K.
The government added that AI Growth Zones will help transform local economies, with £5M of government funding for each Growth Zone to boost business adoption and invest in the skills of local workers.
The government said it will act as a “first customer” for promising U.K. start-ups which are building high-quality AI hardware products but currently struggle to get off the ground without investment. The new “advance market commitment” is backed up by up to £100M of government support to help British startups win customers in a global market.
AI Growth Zone data centers will house billions of pounds of hardware, according to the government.
Venture capitalist James Wise will chair the Sovereign AI Unit, backed by almost £500M in investment to help build and scale AI capabilities in Britain.
The unit will bring together government, industry and investors to provide funding for high potential start-ups and scale-ups in the U.K.
In addition, the government said that the process to spend up to £250M on compute has been launched.
A new strategy is also being unveiled to make sure AI boosts scientific discovery backed by up to £137M in government funding. Its first mission will be focused on using AI to speed up the research of new drugs and treatments.
The government said that several sites will make up a new AI Growth Zone in South Wales, dedicated areas of AI development, stretching along the M4 corridor from Newport to Bridgend and has the potential to harness over 1 GW by early 2030s.
The government added that building on these partnerships, Nvidia”s (NVDA) continued investments and collaborations are helping strengthen the U.K’s role as a global hub for AI development.
Four AI Growth Zone sites have now been announced in the 11 months since the launch of the country’s AI Opportunities Action Plan.
American AI inference platform Groq will be opening its first U.K. data center in London this year, backed by around £100M.
Graphcore and SoftBank have renewed their backing for the U.K. with a new AI development lab in Bristol, doubling their headcount to 750 jobs.
AI Pathfinder is fast-tracking U.K. sovereign AI with a £150M GPU deployment in Northamptonshire. This is the first step in an £18B program into U.K. sovereign AI infrastructure over the next five years.
Perplexity AI is investing £80M to expand its offices in London, creating 100 jobs, according to the government.
The British government noted that these fresh investments build on Equinix’s recent £4B commitment to constructing and operating a high-performance data center campus in Hertfordshire, supporting thousands of jobs. Zoom had also confirmed plans to open a new U.K. data center in 2026 backed by £24M investment over the next three years.
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