Four US firms have announced a combined £6.3bn investment into UK data centres as PM Keir Starmer puts technology at the heart of the government’s industrial strategy at this week’s investment summit.
CyrusOne, ServiceNow, Cloud HQ and CoreWeave have announced the UK will be the home for their data infrastructure with some of the new data centres set to be completed as soon as 2028.
The announcement follows even bigger commitments from Amazon and Microsoft and takes the total investment in UK data centres to over £25 billion since the new Labour government took office in July.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: “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. 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.”
The investment comprises:
- Washington DC-headquartered firm CloudHQ, which is set to develop a new £1.9 billion data centre campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire, creating 1,500 jobs during construction, and 100 permanent jobs once fully operational;
- Global AI platform and software leader ServiceNow plans to invest £1.15 billion into its UK business to support the future development of AI in the UK, expanding its data centres with Nvidia GPUs for local processing data;
- CyrusOne, a data centre developer, plans to expand its investment into the UK to £2.5 billion over the coming years, with the projects operational by Q4 2028 subject to planning permission;
- AI hyperscaler CoreWeave confirmed £750 million to support its next-generation AI cloud infrastructure.
It comes after the UK government last month unveiled proposals to designate British data centres as ‘critical national infrastructure.’
The move, which is the first such designation in nearly a decade, places data centres on a par with water, energy and emergency services systems and will mean businesses sector can now expect greater government support in recovering from and anticipating critical incidents.
The announcement, which elevates data centres to among the country’s most important national infrastructure, is aimed at ushering in a wave of fresh investment into the UK’s cloud market by providing the industry with greater reassurance when setting up operations in the UK.
In recent months the UK government has signalled its openness to proposals to build more data centres in the UK as it eyes opportunities to accelerate growth in the British economy. In July, Levelling Up secretary Angela Rayner unveiled a review into two proposals to build data centres in London’s commuter belt which had been blocked by local authorities in signs the government is prepared to overrule local planning decisions to support public infrastructure development.
The total economic impact of cloud computing in the UK accounted for over £42 billion in 2023, according to an analysis by Telecom Advisory Services. That is equivalent to 1.6% of GDP, larger than the UK’s automotive manufacturing sector.
