The world’s fourth-biggest company, Google owner Alphabet, has announced a £5bn ($6.8bn) investment in UK artificial intelligence (AI).
The money will be used for infrastructure and scientific research over the next two years – the first of several massive US investments being unveiled ahead of US President Donald Trump’s state visit.
Google’s president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat told BBC News in an exclusive interview there were “profound opportunities in the UK” for its “pioneering work in advanced science”.
The company will officially open a $1bn (£735m) data centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Tuesday.
The investment will expand this site and also include funding for London-based DeepMind, run by British Nobel Prize winner Sir Demis Hassabis, which deploys AI to revolutionise advanced scientific research.
Ms Porat said there was “now a US-UK special technology relationship… there’s downside risks that we need to work on together to mitigate, but there’s also tremendous opportunity in economic growth, in social services, advancing science”.
She pointed to the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan as helping the investment, but said “there’s still work to be done to land that”, and that capturing the upside of the AI boom “was not a foregone conclusion”.
Reeves said the investment was “a powerful vote of confidence in the UK economy” and showed “the strength of our partnership with the US”.
