ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
- Stargate launched in the UK with tens of billions of dollars in pledged AI investments.
- OpenAI is teaming up with Nvidia and Nscale to build sovereign AI infrastructure in Britain.
- The UK’s pledged investments lag far behind Stargate’s $500 billion US commitments.
The UK is getting its own version of Stargate, a sovereign AI infrastructure project, through a partnership between OpenAI, Nvidia, and Nscale, announced during President Donald Trump’s second state visit.
The Stargate UK rollout, alongside investment commitments of up to $30 billion from Microsoft, $15 billion from Nvidia, and $5 billion from Google, could see Big Tech’s British AI infrastructure spending run into the tens of billions.
That’s a huge number — but still a fraction of the up to $500 billion Stargate project announced for the US earlier this year, which Trump billed as “the largest AI infrastructure project in history.”
Like the US plan, much of the UK funding is still in the form of commitments rather than cash already spent.
The US Stargate venture, which involves OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, recently signed a $300 billion cloud deal with Oracle.
The UK announcements span varying timeframes, with most deployments scheduled from 2026 onwards. They include commitments to deploy tens of thousands of AI chips, known as GPUs, expand data center capacity, and create the UK’s largest supercomputer.
Stargate UK would give Britain local computing power to run OpenAI’s models in sensitive areas such as financial services, national security, and scientific research, the company said in a Tuesday announcement.
OpenAI plans to offtake 8,000 Nvidia graphics processing units in early 2026, potentially scaling to 31,000 over time. Nscale said it would expand across multiple sites, including Cobalt Park in northeast England, part of a newly designated “AI Growth Zone.”
“The UK has been a long-standing pioneer of AI, and is now home to world-class researchers, millions of ChatGPT users, and a government that quickly recognized the potential of this technology,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
“Stargate UK builds on this foundation to help accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity, and drive economic growth,” he added.
The wave of announcements came during Trump’s three-day visit, as the US and UK signed a “Tech Prosperity Deal” that the UK government said was worth £31 billion, or around $42 billion, to boost cooperation in AI, quantum computing, and civil nuclear energy.
Microsoft on Tuesday pledged to build the UK’s largest supercomputer with more than 23,000 Nvidia GPUs, while Nvidia unveiled a plan for new “AI factories” across Britain, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a “decisive step” toward making the UK a world leader in AI.
Alongside infrastructure, OpenAI plans to roll out OpenAI Academy, an education hub to help upskill 7.5 million UK workers by 2030.
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