UK sees over £6bn boost in datacentre investments

To tie in with the government’s International Investment Summit, US tech firms CyrusOne, ServiceNow, Cloud HQ, CoreWeave and ServiceNow have announced major UK expansion worth a total of £6.3bn.  

Last month, the government took steps to classify UK datacentres as critical national infrastructure (CNI), and in July, hired entrepreneur Matt Clifford to kickstart an AI Opportunities Action Plan, which will set out how to boost take-up of artificial intelligence (AI) across all parts of the economy. Clifford’s role includes an assessment of the necessary AI infrastructure, talent and data access required to drive adoption by the public and private sectors.

These latest investments take the total investment in UK datacentres to over £25bn since Labour took office, which the government said demonstrates its continuous effort in driving growth by partnering with businesses.

Commenting on the new investments, technology secretary Peter Kyle, said: “These new datacentres will provide the UK with more computing power and data storage so that Britain has the necessary infrastructure to train and deploy the next generation of AI technologies, such as complex machine learning models and algorithms. This, in turn, will help us roll out AI faster in areas like healthcare, which will help everyone live better and healthier lives.”

Global datacentre operator CyrusOne said it plans to expand its UK investment to £2.5bn over the coming years. Subject to planning permission, the projects should be operational by the end of 2028 and are expected to create more than 1,000 jobs both directly and within its immediate design and construction value chain.

Eric Schwartz, president and CEO at CyrusOne, said: “The UK government’s recent critical national infrastructure designation was a strong signal that datacentres are of strategic importance to the UK economy. It has provided CyrusOne with the confidence to continue its expansion in the UK and support the government’s policy ambition to become a centre of excellence for digital services, technology innovation and AI.”

CloudHQ is planning to develop a new £1.9bn datacentre campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire, which the government said would help to meet the UK’s growing demand for AI and machine learning. It will create 1,500 jobs during construction and 100 permanent jobs once fully operational.

Hossein Fateh, CloudHQ’s founder and CEO, said: “Our site enables us to build out our campus environment to provide scale and density to meet our customers’ requirements.”

ServiceNow has said it is committed to the UK market and plans to invest £1.15bn in its UK business over the next five years. The investment includes UK datacentres powered by Nvidia graphics processing units for local processing data and new office space for the company’s current headcount of 1,000 employees. 

Discussing the UK investment, ServiceNow chairman and CEO Bill McDermott said: “Working together, ServiceNow and HM government are on the brink of a great unlock, putting AI to work for people across the country. AI-powered transformation is a generational opportunity to champion citizens, empower employees and delight customers. ServiceNow’s investment will accelerate the UK’s innovation blueprint, redefining how people live and work.”

Announcing its second investment in the UK this year, AI hyperscaler CoreWeave confirmed £750m to support what it describes as the next generation of AI cloud infrastructure.  

Building on a £1bn investment announced in May and the opening of its European headquarters in London, CoreWeave said it would be further investing in the UK to support the demand for critical AI infrastructure.

Mike Intrator, CEO and co-founder of CoreWeave, said: “We are encouraged by the UK’s strong talent pool, which is reflected in our decision earlier this year to open our European headquarters in London and priority focus on investing in critical infrastructure, to drive the continued development of the UK’s thriving AI sector.”

These investments follow last month’s deal with investment firm Blackstone, which has committed to invest £10bn in the north-east of England, and Amazon Web Services, which has announced plans to invest £8bn in building, maintaining and operating datacentres in the UK over the next five years.