Microsoft and Nvidia announced plans to invest up to $45 billion in the UK during US President Donald Trump’s state visit, a move aimed at expanding data center capacity and funding research and development in artificial intelligence.
Microsoft said it will commit $30 billion to AI infrastructure over the next four years, a sum the company describes as its largest ever UK investment. The firm added that this pledge represents more than two thirds of the total private-sector investment revealed this week alongside the state visit.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, told journalists in a virtual briefing ahead of the announcement, “We are focused on British pounds, not empty tech promises.” He added, “We will be good for every cent of this investment.” Smith said half of the funds will be used for capital expansion—“all new money, all new investments,” Smith claimed—and the remainder will back projects such as a financing arrangement with the data center operator Nscale to fund and use its facilities.
Nvidia pledged up to $15 billion for AI-related research and development in the UK, though the chipmaker said it will channel that spending through partners CoreWeave and Nscale rather than directly financing new builds.
The statements accompanied a new partnership between Nvidia, Nscale and OpenAI called Stargate UK, positioned as a project to strengthen the country’s sovereign compute capacity for AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang traveled with Trump to the UK for the visit.
OpenAI said Stargate UK will let OpenAI’s world-leading AI models run on local computing power in the UK, for the UK. The company said it will provide up to 8,000 GPUs in the first quarter of 2026, with the potential to scale to about 31,000 GPUs over time. Under the agreement, Nscale plans major capacity growth across several UK sites, including Cobalt Park in Newcastle, which will join a newly designated AI Growth Zone in the northeast.
“This historic commitment from Nscale shows how the UK can build the future of AI, together with our partners from the US,” Nscale CEO Josh Payne said in a statement.
When asked to characterize Microsoft’s relationship with Nscale, Smith said simply, “We write the check, and they spend the money.” He was quick to insist that the company was not making the announcement at the behest of the US administration. “We have had many conversations with the UK government, including with folks at Number 10, as you would expect, and those have been going on for months,” he said.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said he wants the UK to be the “destination of choice for companies at the forefront of technological change,” a line included in a joint press release issued Tuesday by Nscale. The government and industry statements framed the deals as part of a wider effort to use domestic technical talent and help the UK compete on artificial intelligence. Starmer described the commitments as a “decisive step” toward that aim.
Just ahead of the state visit, Alphabet announced it would put $6.8 billion into UK AI projects over the next two years, a program that will include funding for Google DeepMind. The parent of Google has also opened a $1 billion data center in Hertfordshire.
London remains Europe’s largest data center market, yet the sector faces limits from constrained power availability and a scarcity of suitable land, according to property services firm CBRE. The UK government declared data centers critical national infrastructure in September 2024.
The corporate pledges have provoked objections from environmental advocates, campaign groups and some local residents, who have raised concerns about the energy and water demands of large-scale computing facilities. Tech justice group Foxglove called for an urgent review of the UK’s approach to new data centers. “Following the queasy spectacle of CEOs from tech giants like Google, Meta and OpenAI queuing up to pay tribute at the White House this month, it’s little surprise to hear that the Trump-Big Tech axis is dead set on covering the UK in hyperscale data centers,” Campbell said in a written statement.
Global Action Plan said government planning has ignored the sector’s large demands for water and electricity. Oliver Hayes, head of policy and campaigns at Global Action Plan, warned: “More and bigger data centers mean more electricity demand and more pressure on water supplies. There will be a very significant impact on additional power demand. It will make it harder to reach our climate goals. It’s a trade-off, and at the moment they are not being held accountable for that trade-off.”