UK signs multi-billion-pound tech alliance with the United States
The United Kingdom has signed a new tech deal with the United States that will deliver billions of pounds in private investment to Britain’s healthcare, AI, nuclear, and energy industries.
The newly inked Tech Prosperity Deal focuses on developing the fastest growing technologies like AI, quantum, and nuclear, with the goal of making emerging technologies a shared success for British and American people.
This deal will see the UK and US collaborate on research to advance the use of AI in drug discovery and other shared priorities like fusion energy.
A civil nuclear deal has also been struck to speed up the delivery of nuclear projects, and the UK and US will partner to use AI and quantum technology to improve healthcare quality and outcomes.
Alongside this new tech alliance, top US tech giants including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave have committed to invest £31 billion to boost the UK’s AI infrastructure.
The UK will establish a new AI growth zone in North East England, which it said has the potential to deliver thousands of jobs and funnel billions more in investment into the region.
NVIDIA will work with UK companies to deploy 120,000 advanced GPUs across the country; its biggest ever rollout in Europe to date.
This includes the deployment of up to 60,000 Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs from British firm Nscale, which together with OpenAI will establish a partnership with Microsoft to deliver the UK’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton.
Investments in the UK surrounding this deal include a £22-billion planned spend on AI in the UK from Microsoft, a new Google data centre opening in the country as part of a £5-billion investment, a £1.5-billion AI investment form Coreweave, and £1.4 billion from Salesforce.
“This Tech Prosperity Deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the US, shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, and delivering growth, security and opportunity up and down the country,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“By teaming-up with world-class companies from both the UK and US, we’re laying the foundations for a future where together we are world leaders in the technology of tomorrow, creating highly skilled jobs, putting more money in people’s pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom.”
