Under the £11 billion investment plans from Nvidia, the UK will be home to the largest European GPU cluster.
Nvidia's £11 Billion Investment Boosts UK's AI Economy
Nvidia, the American technology company, has announced a significant investment of £11 billion into the UK's artificial intelligence (AI) sector. This investment includes the global deployment of Nvidia's advanced technology, with a substantial portion earmarked for UK-based exports. This move is set to provide a significant boost to the region's AI economy.
One of the key players in this investment is Nscale, a partner of Nvidia. Josh Payne, Nscale's CEO, has pledged to build the most powerful supercomputer in the UK, in collaboration with Microsoft. As part of this global deployment, Nscale is set to deploy 60,000 GB300 chips in the UK, marking a significant increase from the 10,000 GPUs they announced in June.
Nvidia will deploy 120,000 Blackwell GPUs in the UK by the end of 2026, making it Europe's largest GPU cluster. This deployment will be partially located at the Cobalt Park site, with the remainder not yet allocated. The remaining 140,000 GPUs from Nscale's global deployment are yet to be allocated to as-yet-unannounced sites in the US and Portugal.
The UK government has also shown its commitment to AI growth, unveiling plans to establish 'AI growth zones' in January. The latest announcement was made in North East England, across Blyth and Cobalt Park outside Newcastle. This comes after Google announced the opening of a new data center in Broxbourne to expand its UK cloud availability.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is planning multiple gigawatt data centers, representing millions of GPUs. OpenAI, the AI research company backed by Microsoft, is targeting a deployment of two million GPUs for its Oracle-backed Stargate project. Nscale will deploy 8,000 GPUs for OpenAI's 'Stargate UK' project.
Besides Nscale, NVIDIA partners with venture capital firms such as Accel and Air Street Capital to invest in AI infrastructure in the EU, particularly in the UK. Additionally, Microsoft collaborates with Nscale and Aker JV to build hyperscale AI data centers in Norway and the UK, representing major investments in AI infrastructure. Google has also announced a £5 billion investment into UK infrastructure, including AI-related costs at Google DeepMind.
Nvidia's VP for enterprise, EMEA, David Hogan, stated that the UK has the right conditions for rapid AI growth and innovation. With these investments, it seems that the UK is set to become a hub for AI research and development in Europe.
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