The UK government has promised to provide homegrown startups with “funding, training and industry collaboration opportunities” as part of a sweeping £31bn deal struck with the US.
As part of US president Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain this week, the two countries have signed a wide-ranging “tech prosperity deal” — backed by American industry giants like Google, OpenAI and Nvidia — aimed at speeding up the development of AI, quantum, nuclear and other technologies.
The agreement will see OpenAI launch the UK version of its international “Stargate” project, in partnership with British startup Nscale, which aims to level up AI infrastructure around the world and has already started work in the US and Europe.
Announcing the initiative on Tuesday, government officials said the north east of England would be designated an “AI growth zone”, promising to deliver more than 5,000 jobs and “billions in private investment” in the region.
As part of the deal, industry body TechUK will partner with chipmaker Nvidia to provide local startups with funding and training “to make the most of AI”, according to a government press release.
Additional commitments include £22bn from Microsoft to invest in AI infrastructure; a £5bn investment by Google to boost R&D and open a new data centre in Hertfordshire; and a £1.4bn pledge from Salesforce to invest in its UK operations.
Asked how much of the £31bn had been earmarked for startups, tech minister Kanishka Narayan told Sifted: “We can come back on particular details, but we’re hoping to make some announcements on startup funding soon.”
He added: “We are now going to be the country with the largest European deployment of GPUs [...] That is a broad signal to every startup founder, in the UK and abroad, that this is the right place if they’re thinking of building a company in Europe.
“If you look at companies like ElevenLabs and Synthesia, we have a remarkable set of possibilities already in Britain [...] There is no doubt in my mind that we are starting from a position of particular distinctiveness and independence in the application of AI.”
