During London Tech Week, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang also confirmed the launch of a new Nvidia AI tech center in the UK
In sum – what to know:
U.K. commits to AI compute – The country aims to become a global AI leader by 2030 with major investment in research infrastructure starting immediately.
Nvidia expands U.K. presence – Launch of new AI lab, training programs and tech center to support advanced research and upskilling.
AI supercomputing gains speed – The U.K.’s Isambard-AI — powered by 5,500 Nvidia GH200 chips — will be fully operational this summer, boosting research and innovation capacity.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an investment of approximately £1 billion ($1.35 billion) into AI research computing by 2030, with funding already rolling out this year.
The announcement was made at London Tech Week, where Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang also confirmed the company’s deepening commitment to the U.K., including the launch of a new Nvidia AI technology center.
The center will focus on advanced research in embodied AI, materials science and climate modeling. Nvidia also revealed plans to open a dedicated AI lab and contribute to a national AI upskilling initiative aimed at training developers in cutting-edge technologies.
“This is a two-way conversation,” said Starmer. “We need to showcase what we have.” Starmer also shared that every government department is now assessing how AI can be applied to improve services.
“The U.K. has one of the richest AI communities of anywhere on the planet, the deepest thinkers, the best universities… and the third largest AI capital investment of anywhere in the world,” Huang said.
“So the ability to build these AI supercomputers here in the U.K. will naturally attract more startups, it will naturally enable the rich ecosystem of researchers here to do their life’s work,” Huang added.
To that end, Nvidia said it will continue to invest in the U.K. “We’re going to start our AI lab here… we’re going to partner with the UK to upskill the ecosystem of developers into the world of AI,” Huang added.
Cloud provider Nscale announced at London Tech Week its commitment to deploy U.K. AI infrastructure with 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs by the end of 2026.
And cloud provider Nebius announced the launch of its first AI factory in the U.K. The firm announced it’s bringing 4,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs online, making available high-performance AI capacity in the country for U.K. research, academia and public services, including the NHS.
Earlier this year, The U.K. Government unveiled an ambitious Artificial Intelligence (AI) Opportunities Action Plan, aiming to position the nation as a global leader in AI technology. This comprehensive strategy outlines significant investments in AI infrastructure, regulatory frameworks and talent development to harness AI’s transformative potential across various sectors.
One of the main pillars of the U.K.’s AI strategy is the development of robust AI infrastructure. The government noted it plans to expand sovereign compute capacity by at least 20 times by 2030, ensuring that the nation’s computational resources can meet the growing demands of advanced AI applications. This expansion includes the development of a state-of-the-art supercomputing facility, set to double the capacity of the national AI Research Resource. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is spearheading this initiative, with researchers and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) expected to access these resources in early 2025, leveraging powerful supercomputers located in Bristol (Isambard AI) and Cambridge (Dawn).
To stimulate private sector investment and foster close collaboration between government and industry, the U.K. also said it is establishing AI Growth Zones (AIGZs). These zones offer enhanced access to power and streamlined planning approvals to accelerate the development of AI infrastructure. The inaugural AI Growth Zone is planned for Culham, home to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). This pilot project aims to develop one of the U.K.’s largest AI data centers, starting with a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW) and scaling up to 500MW.
