UK set for AI tech boost as millions of pounds injected after action plan
The UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector has received an average of £200m in private investment daily since July 2024, as global firms rally behind Starmer’s blueprint to turbocharge AI.
In the 24 hours that followed the government’s release on Monday, over £14bn of new investment has been reported, with pledges to create over 13,000 jobs across the UK.
This news follows £25bn worth of new investment into the UK’s data centres which was announced at the Global Investment Summit in October 2024.
The influx in AI funding in the UK coincides with recent, major commitments from tech leaders like CoreWeave, which on Tuesday established its first UK data centres in Crawley and London Docklands.
The New-York based cloud provider is investing £1.75bn to bolster the country’s compute capacity with Nvidia technology.
Homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) company Synthesia has also reached a $2.1bn (£1.7bn) valuation after its latest funding round, while Liverpool will also benefit from Kyndryl’s commitment to creating 1,000 AI related jobs in the next three years.
Positive backing has also come from overseas, with French AI company Mistral announcing plans to expand into London, which would be its first base outside France.,
Infrastructure investments have also surged, with Nscale pouring $2.5bn (£2bn) into building the UK’s largest sovereign AI data in Essex by 2026, creating thousands of jobs.
Vantage Data Centres, as part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, has pledged over £12bn to expand its operations in cloud services and infrastructure.
“A new chapter”
Peter Kyle, secretary of state for Science, Technology and Innovation (DSIT), said: “This week we begin a new chapter – putting AI in the driving seat to power the Government’s Plan for Change and deliver better lives for everyone in the country.”
“By attracting more than £14 billion in new investment and thousands of fresh jobs since unveiling our new blueprint from companies across the globe, the message is clear – the UK’s pull as a magnet for AI innovation and growth will only go from strength to strength.”
However, the Information Commissioner’s Office have pointed out privacy and data protection concerns.
Its executive director, Stephen Almond, said: “Data protection is essential to realising this opportunity and ensuring that the public can have innovate and grow responsibly while upholding people’s rights and freedoms”.
Nathan Marlor, head of data and AI at IT service management firm Version 1 added: “The National Data Library could unlock innovation by making high-quality, well-governed datasets accessible. However, governance, data privacy, and security will be critical to realising this ambition.”