US tech firms to invest £6.3 bln to build new data centres in UK
Four US tech firms will invest over £6bn in data centres in the UK, it was announced at the global Investment Summit that the government hosted yesterday at the Guildhall in the City of London.
ServiceNow, CyrusOne, CloudHQ and CoreWeave said they would invest a combined £6.3bn in UK data centre technology and create a number of centres that are set to be completed by 2028.
CloudHQ, which is based in Washington, is set to develop a new £1.9 billion data centre campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire. ServiceNow, a global AI platform and software company, will invest £1.15 billion to support the development of artificial intelligence and expand its network of data centres.
Building on a £1 billion investment announced in May, CoreWeave will invest a further £750 million in his next-generation AI cloud infrastructure. CyrusOne is planning to expand its investments in UK data centres to £2.5 billion over the next few years, subject to planning permission.
The UK Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, called the move a “vote of confidence” in Britain.
“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”, said Kyle. “Data centres power our day-to-day lives and boost innovation in growing sectors like AI. This is why I took steps to class UK data centres as Critical National Infrastructure giving the industry the ultimate reassurance the UK will always be a safe home for their investment.”
In a bid to attract more foreign investment in the sector and promote economic growth, the government last month announced that British data centres would receive more support and will be designated as “critical national infrastructure” on a par with energy and water.
“The UK government’s recent critical national infrastructure designation was a strong signal that data centres are of strategic importance to the UK economy”, said Eric Schwartz, President and CEO, CyrusOne. “It has provided us with the confidence to continue our expansion in the UK and support the government’s policy ambition to become a centre of excellence for digital services, technology innovation and AI.
The government has also said it is prepared to overrule local planning decisions and is reviewing two projects to build data centres on the outskirts of London which had been stopped by local authorities.
At the summit yesterday the former Google boss, Eric Schmidt, told prime minister Keir Starmer that the demand for energy for data centres is “massive”, saying: “We need you to approve the necessary steps to make these data centres in Britain because your research scientists, your companies, your citizens all need these things.”
Recently Amazon and Microsoft have announced significant investment in UK data centres, taking the total investment in the sector to over £25 billion since the Labour government was elected in July.