(Bloomberg/Debby Wu and Mark Bergen) — Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it will invest £5 billion ($6.8 billion) over two years in the UK to help build an artificial intelligence economy in the country.
The tech giant disclosed the plan just as US President Donald Trump is set to announce billions of dollars of economic deals during his visit to the longtime US ally this week. Trump is expected to travel with several US tech leaders including Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Britain’s ruling Labour party has made AI services and infrastructure, including large new data centers, a key pillar of its economic growth strategy, although the government has been criticized for tax policies that restrict the growth of its tech companies.
In July, the UK government announced a deal with Google’s cloud business to upgrade its IT system and train civil servants. Google’s new spending in the country will cover a wide array of services, including science and health care research as well as its AI unit DeepMind, which is headquartered in London, according to a company statement on Tuesday.
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Part of the investment will go toward “advanced computing hardware” for a $1 billion data center in Waltham Cross, announced last year, a Google spokesperson said. The data center will help meet growing demand for Google’s services including search and maps, according to the statement.
Still, the UK commitment remains a small portion of the company’s overall spending. Alphabet’s capital expenditure is expected to reach $92.6 billion in 2026, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
US companies OpenAI and Nvidia are planning to pledge investments in UK data centers worth billions of dollars during Trump’s visit to the country. Trump is also set to ink a partnership to make it quicker for companies in the US and Britain to build nuclear power stations.
(Updates with more context on Trump visit, UK plans and Google’s overall spending, starting in the second paragraph)
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