Keir Starmer’s government hailed billions of pounds of investment into UK data centres as a “vote of confidence in Britain” today, as ministers announced scores of deals during the flagship International Investment Summit.
US firms Cyrusone, Cloud HQ, Coreweave and Servicenow revealed plans to inject a combined £6.3bn in funding into the UK’s data centre industry to help meet the nation’s increasing demand for AI and machine learning.
CloudHQ is set to invest £1.9bn into a new data centre campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire, creating 1,500 construction jobs and 100 permanent roles once the facility is up and running.
CyrusOne, a major global developer, also announced a £2.5bn investment to develop UK data centres, with operations expected to go live by 2028, pending planning approvals.
AI firm CoreWeave confirmed a £750m investment to fuel AI cloud infrastructure, following its £1bn commitment earlier this year and the opening of its European HQ in London.
It comes after software company Servicenow earlier today announced a pledge of £1.15bn over the next five years, including plans to expand its UK data centre operations with Nvidia and ramp up its office space and headcount.
Tech secretary Peter Kyle welcomed the news, saying: “Tech leaders from all over the world are seeing Britain as the best place to invest with a thriving and stable market for data centres and AI development.
“Data centres power our day-to-day lives and boost innovation in growing sectors like AI. This is why only last month, I took steps to class UK data centres as Critical National Infrastructure giving the industry the ultimate reassurance the UK will always be a safe home for their investment.
“Today’s drumbeat of investment is a vote of confidence in Britain and our approach to work with business to deliver sustained growth for all,” he added.
David Bloom, chairman of Kao Data and founder and chief executive of digital infrastructure investor Goldacre praised the new funding but warned it needs to be coupled with “strategic” planning”.
“This is another significant boost to the rapidly growing data centre market in this country,” he said.
“This investment will continue to put the UK on the map as a key location in any data centre portfolio.
“However, these announcements also need to be coupled with a strategic vision to address core issues, such as planning, renewable power infrastructure and UK compute diversity, to ensure the ambition turns to reality,” Bloom added.
The UK government recently classified data centres as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), meaning they will receive extra government support to safeguard vital data – including NHS records and personal smartphone information – from cyberattacks, outages, and extreme weather events.
It comes as the government’s international investment summit is drawing to a close. This morning at the event, former Google boss Eric Schmidt called on the Prime Minister to ensure that data centres are built quickly and without hindrance.
He said to Keir Starmer: “We need you to approve the necessary steps to make these data centres in Britain because your research scientists, your companies, your citizens all need these things.”
