Nvidia and partners to invest GBP11 billion in UK AI factories

Nvidia Corp on Tuesday announced plans for a multi-billion-pound investment in the UK and partnerships that will see the mass deployment of its chips across new artificial intelligence factories.

The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker and the world's most valuable company by market capitalisation has joined a slew of US firms that have announced major investments in the UK in recent days as US President Donald Trump embarks on his second state visit to the country.

Alongside AI infrastructure partners including NScale Global Holdings Ltd and Livingston, New Jersey-based cloud computing company CoreWeave Inc, Nvidia plans to invest up to GBP11 billion in several new UK AI factories, pledging to deploy up to 120,000 of its Blackwell Ultra graphics processing units to local data centres.

Nvidia's cloud partner NScale, a UK-based hyperscaler, will scale up its global expansion with 300,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs in AI factories in the US, Portugal, and Norway, with 60,000 now being placed in the UK.

Nvidia and NScale will also work with San Francisco, California-based ChatGPT developer OpenAI Inc to establish the Stargate UK AI infrastructure initiative.

The project will see Blackwell Ultra GPUs operating in NScale's UK data centers by 2026 and OpenAI is expected to use Nvidia's infrastructure to serve its AI-powered language models.

On Tuesday, Redmond, Washington-based technology company Microsoft Corp announced its intention to invest USD30 billion in the UK over four years. This included plans to partner with NScale and build the nation's largest supercomputer in Loughton, England.

"It is expected to feature more than 24,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs to provide Microsoft Azure services in the UK," Nvidia commented.

CoreWeave also announced that it will set up an advanced data centre in Scotland using Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs, powered by renewable energy.

In addition to this, Nvidia said it will launch an AI and robotics research and development hub with the trade association techUK.

Nvidia further announced a UK-based workforce partnership with techUK, alongside robotics and automation firm Quanser Consulting Inc and training provider QA Ltd, to strengthen the UK's robotics and AI ecosystem.

"The United Kingdom is building the infrastructure for the AI industrial revolution — advancing science, transforming industries and creating new economic opportunities," said Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang. "We are at the big bang of intelligence, and the United Kingdom’s Goldilocks ecosystem of world-class expertise, outstanding universities and vibrant industries is uniquely positioned to thrive in the age of AI."