Microsoft (MSFT.US), OpenAI, and other American companies announced plans this week to invest tens of billions of dollars in the UK's technology infrastructure sector. This series of business collaboration agreements was unveiled during US President Trump's visit to the UK this week.

The UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology stated in a Tuesday announcement that these tech giants will invest over £31 billion (approximately $42.3 billion) in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, quantum computing projects, and various other technology sectors.

Trump's UK visit is accompanied by several prominent Silicon Valley figures, including NVIDIA (NVDA.US) CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Notably, OpenAI is also bringing its "Stargate" project to the UK.

These initiatives strongly support UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's strategy to strengthen UK-US relations and promote technological development. He has committed to accelerating the planning approval process for UK data centers while streamlining grid connection procedures—the UK is currently one of Europe's countries with the highest electricity prices.

The UK government also announced plans to establish a new "AI Growth Zone," with this data center facility being viewed by Starmer's Labour Party as an important vehicle for job creation. UK Deputy Science Minister Kanishka Narayan stated at a press conference: "Today, the UK and US are engaged in deep cooperation. The core of this cooperation focuses not only on the historical foundation of the two countries' 'special relationship,' but also looks toward our shared future."

Unlike European countries such as France, which promote domestic AI enterprise development to demonstrate technological independence, Starmer has chosen to achieve development goals through Silicon Valley partnerships.

OpenAI leads the "Stargate" AI infrastructure project that Trump announced in January, with a total scale of $500 billion. The AI company had previously indicated it would expand the "Stargate" project to other countries.

In the UK project implementation, OpenAI will collaborate with partners including Nscale Global Holdings Ltd. to deploy up to approximately 60,000 of NVIDIA's latest Blackwell series chips. OpenAI plans to initially activate up to 8,000 of these chips in the first quarter of 2026, with future scale potentially expanding to 31,000 chips.

The UK "Stargate" project will cover multiple regions, including the new "AI Growth Zone" to be built in northeast England. However, Narayan did not disclose the specific funding amounts that related companies will invest in the project.

Other major investment announcements include:

Microsoft has agreed to invest $30 billion in UK AI infrastructure and existing operations over the next four years. The software giant describes this as its largest financial commitment to the UK market. As part of the collaboration, Microsoft will partner with UK data center company Nscale to build a supercomputer equipped with over 23,000 advanced GPUs, to be deployed at Nscale's AI campus in Luton, near London.

NVIDIA announced participation in an £11 billion domestic and international AI data center construction plan, collaborating with Nscale and CoreWeave (CRWV.US) to build new facilities, aiming to deploy 120,000 AI acceleration chips in the UK by 2026. Additionally, Nscale's computer expansion projects in the UK and other countries all use NVIDIA chips, with the project totaling 300,000 chip deployments. NVIDIA stated this deployment will make Nscale a "global-scale infrastructure operator." NVIDIA indicated the company is committed to "accelerating the development of the UK's AI industry revolution," but did not specify investment amounts or implementation methods.

CoreWeave, which provides data center computing power support for companies like OpenAI, announced it will invest £1.5 billion in the UK. The company is collaborating with NVIDIA and Scottish data center company DataVita to deploy its technology at DataVita's proprietary facility in Chapel Hall. This data center uses renewable energy and will have a total computing capacity of 31 megawatts, expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2026. Notably, this investment is additional funding on top of the £1 billion the company has already invested in London's Docklands and Crawley.

Customer relationship management software provider Salesforce (CRM.US) announced an additional $2 billion investment in the UK by 2030. This continues and expands upon its five-year $4 billion investment plan announced in 2023.

Earlier this week, Google (GOOGL.US) announced a £5 billion investment in the UK over two years, including construction of a new data center in Hertfordshire.

BlackRock (BLK.US) announced a £500 million investment in the data center sector. Its CEO Larry Fink also accompanied Trump on this UK visit.

Currently, the UK, along with other countries globally, is committed to building domestic AI infrastructure, known as "sovereign AI." As the world's highest market capitalization company, NVIDIA views this trend as a key driver of its future growth. Although this California chip giant has achieved explosive sales growth over the past two years, its revenue largely depends on a few major data center operators.

Jensen Huang has stated that by the end of this decade, global investment in "sovereign AI" could generate up to $4 trillion in AI-related spending, bringing enormous growth opportunities to the industry.