Those data centers will be powered by Nvidia chips and the company said it would ship up to 120,000 advanced GPUs to British data centers in total, funded by investments from Microsoft, Nscale, OpenAI and CoreWeave.
Around half of those GPUs will go to British data center firm Nscale, which is partnering with Microsoft to build Britain’s largest AI supercomputer in Loughton, Essex, using 23,000 Nvidia chips.
OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said Stargate UK, which will bring 8,000 GPUs to the country, would “accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity, and drive economic growth.”
The biggest chunk of investment will come from Microsoft, which said it would invest £22 billion in the U.K. over the next four years. Microsoft said around half of that figure would go towards capital expenditures on AI infrastructure, while the rest would support the company’s ongoing operations in the U.K., including in AI model development, its gaming division, and general product development.
“We’re focused on British pounds, not empty tech promises,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a press conference Tuesday.
Fellow tech giant Google cut the ribbon on a new data center on Tuesday in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, and said it would commit to spend £5 billion in the U.K. over the next two years.