Nvidia and Microsoft bosses hail huge UK AI investment

Major US tech firms have pledged tens of billions of pounds worth of investment in the UK, with Nvidia Jensen Huang, predicting the country will become an “AI superpower”.

The biggest single investment comes from Microsoft, which has announced a $30bn (£22bn) spending package – its largest ever outside the US.

It is part of a £31bn agreement, dubbed the “Tech Prosperity Deal”, between the UK government and several US tech giants as part of President Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK.

“This is the week that I declare the UK will be an AI superpower,” Mr Huang told BBC News.

He said the UK had the expertise and research facilities to excel in AI, but “what’s missing is the AI infrastructure,” adding: “We are here to build it.”

AI relies on large banks of servers, run on computer chips like those made by Nvidia, to operate.

Nvidia is partnering with British infrastructure company Nscale to build more such data centres in the UK, and Mr Huang said he had aspirations of “building an AI infrastructure company here in the UK, and then helping it scale out globally.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said he expected AI investment to drive UK growth and productivity.

“It may happen faster, so our hope is not 10 years but maybe five,” he told the BBC.

“Whenever anyone gets excited about AI, I want to see it ultimately in the economic growth and the GDP growth.”

The deal will see Google, Nvidia and others invest in British-based infrastructure including data centres as well as the creation of a new supercomputer in Essex.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the deal would create highly skilled jobs “putting more money in people’s pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom”.

Mr Nadella compared the economic benefits of the meteoric rise of AI with the impact of the personal computer when it became common in the workplace, about ten years after it first started scaling in the 1990s.

But there are also growing mutterings that AI is a very lucrative bubble that is about to burst.

Mr Nadella conceded that “all tech things are about booms and busts and bubbles” and warned that AI should not be “over-hyped or under-hyped”.

He acknowledged that its energy consumption remains “very high” but argued that its potential benefits, especially in the fields of healthcare, public services, and business productivity, were worthwhile.

Meanwhile, when asked about the massive energy resources required to power AI, Mr Huang said solar power would contribute, and he was hoping for more gas turbines in the short term that could be put “off the grid so we don’t burden people on the grid”.

He added that AI itself would design better gas turbines, solar panels, wind turbines and fusion energy to produce more cost-effective sustainable energy.

The campaign group Foxglove has warned that the UK could end up “footing the bill for the colossal amounts of power the giants need”.

The supercomputer, to be built in Loughton, Essex, was already announced by the government in January, but Microsoft has now come on board to the project.

Mr Nadella was speaking exclusively to BBC News as Donald Trump arrived in the UK on a three-day state visit.

The Tech Prosperity Deal between the two countries seeks to strengthen ties on AI, quantum computing and nuclear power.

Questions have been asked about what if anything the UK has agreed to give in return.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told the BBC the deal did not include guarantees over scrapping a tax for big tech or on copyright for AI companies.

The Digital Services Tax – a 2% levy which raises about £800m a year mainly from US tech companies – was previously said to be part of trade discussions.

But Ms Kendall told the Today programme “that wasn’t part of the partnership” now agreed.

She also said no guarantees were made to AI companies on copyright, a major issue for the UK’s creative sector – which has expressed concerns its work is being used by AI companies without permission.

Meanwhile, a number of other tech companies have pledged billions of pounds in investment alongside Microsoft and Nvidia.

Google has promised £5bn for AI research and infrastructure over the next two years.

Tech leaders including Nadella, Huang and OpenAI boss Sam Altman will accompany Trump to a state banquet hosted by the Royal Family at Windsor Castle on Wednesday evening.

The government also said there was “potential for more than 5,000 jobs and billions in private investment” in north-east England, which has been designated as a new “AI growth zone“.

It has announced a data centre project at Cobalt Park, Northumberland – dubbed Stargate UK – from OpenAI, Nvidia, Nscale and semiconductor company Arm.

However the UK version is much smaller than OpenAI’s US-based Stargate project, launched in January with a commitment to invest $500bn (£367bn) over the next four years building new AI infrastructure.

The Tony Blair Institute described the news as a “breakthrough moment” but added Britain had some work to do.

Dr Keegan McBride, an emerging tech and geopolitics expert at the institute, said that work included “reforming planning rules, accelerating the delivery of clean energy projects, and building the necessary digital infrastructure” for growth.

The Conservative Party highlighted that other big international companies such as the pharmaceutical giant Merck have recently cancelled or delayed their UK expansion plans.

Additional reporting by Imran Rahman-Jones and Philippa Wain.