Microsoft has announced its biggest investment in the UK in its 40-year history, with a commitment to spend £2.5 billion over the next three years to expand their AI data centre infrastructure and train one million people for the AI economy.
This investment will more than double Microsoft’s data centre footprint in the UK, and will see them add more than 20,000 GPUs to the UK data centres for AI tasks by 2026. The new AI infrastructure will be located across in London and Cardiff, with future expansion into northern England.
Microsoft is committed as a company to ensuring that the UK as a country has world-leading AI infrastructure, easy access to the skills people need, and broad protections for safety and security.
Brad Smith | President | Microsoft
This investment was announcement at the Global Investment Summit, where the UK government unveiled they were investing £29.5 billion into the most innovative sectors, including tech, housing, science and medicine, renewables, and UK infrastructure.
Microsoft are one of the founding fathers of modern technology and today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK.
Rishi Sunak | UK Prime minister
Microsoft’s investment will help bolster the UK’s growing AI sector, which already contributes nearly £4 billion to the UK economy and employs around 50,000 people. Microsoft are also extending their Accelerating Foundation Models Research (AFMR) programme to provide prioritised access to GPUs for science, medical and research purposes.
To ensure the funding drives tangible outcomes, Microsoft are also investing millions of pounds into training, with a goal to train one million people with the skills they need to build and work with AI, including diducated pots of training support for AI start ups with a join goal with the UK government to accerate the UK in becoming a technology, science and AI superpower.
We are proud to be making this significant investment in the UK’s future as a global leader in AI. This is a critical moment for the UK to harness the power of AI to drive innovation, create new jobs and improve lives. We are committed to working with the UK government, universities and businesses to make this vision a reality.
Brad Smith | President | Microsoft
The investment comes as the government agreed a new Online Fraud Charter with tech companies, including Microsoft, to clamp down on attempted fraud taking place on their and other platforms. This represents the first agreement of its kind in the world and will help protect enterprises and consumers from online scams, phishing attacks and fraud.
The pace of change in AI demands action today to build a prosperous future for the UK tomorrow. Today marks the single largest investment in our more than 40-year history in the UK.
Clare Barclay | UK CEO | Microsoft
As business and the public sector embrace the AI opportunity, we are building the infrastructure that will support the growth they need, training the people who can deliver it responsibly and securing our society against emergent threats.
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