UK and US strike tech deal as Trump arrives for state visit

Britain and the US have struck a tech deal that could bring billions of pounds of investment to the UK as President Donald Trump touches down for his state visit.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the agreement represented “a general step change” in Britain’s relationship with the US that would deliver “growth, security and opportunity up and down the country”.

The “tech prosperity deal”, announced as Mr Trump arrived in the UK on Tuesday night, will see the UK and US co-operate in areas including artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and nuclear power.

It comes alongside £31 billion of investment in Britain from America’s top technology companies, including 30 billion dollars (£22 billion) from Microsoft.

AI infrastructure

Microsoft’s investment, the largest ever made by the company in the UK, will fund an expansion of Britain’s AI infrastructure, which Labour sees as a key part of its efforts to secure economic growth, and the construction of the country’s largest AI supercomputer.

Officials said the investment enabled by the tech partnership could speed up development of new medicines and see collaboration on research in areas such as space exploration and defence.

The Prime Minister said: “This tech prosperity deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the US, shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, and delivering growth, security and opportunity up and down the country.”

Nuclear power stations

The build-up to Mr Trump’s second state visit has already seen London and Washington announce a deal on co-operating on building new nuclear power stations, and a £5 billion investment by Google in Britain’s AI sector.

It also follows the agreement of an economic deal in May this year that covered a reduction in some tariffs imposed by Mr Trump in April, although plans to cut US tariffs on British steel have yet to be implemented.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said the US-UK tech deal was “a vote of confidence in Britain’s booming AI sector” that would “deliver good jobs, life-saving treatments and faster medical breakthroughs”.

The deal was also praised by tech bosses, including Jensen Huang, founder of chip company Nvidia, which has agreed to deploy 120,000 advanced processors across the UK to help the British AI sector.

Mr Huang said: “Today marks a historic chapter in US-United Kingdom technology collaboration.

“We are at the Big Bang of the AI era – and the United Kingdom stands in a Goldilocks position, where world-class talent, research and industry converge.”

Other investments announced alongside the tech deal include:

– £1.5 billion from AI cloud computing company CoreWeave to expand data centre capacity and operations, including a partnership with UK firm DataVita

– £1.4 billion from Salesforce, aimed at making its UK business an AI hub for Europe

– More than £1 billion from UK-based AI Pathfinder to deliver additional compute capacity, starting in Northamptonshire

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has also agreed to partner with Nscale to deploy its Stargate data centre project at a new AI growth zone in the north east of England.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said: “The UK has been a longstanding pioneer of AI, and is now home to world-class researchers, millions of ChatGPT users, and a government that quickly recognised the potential of this technology.

“Stargate UK builds on this foundation to help accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity, and drive economic growth.”