NVIDIA and OpenAI announced a comprehensive AI infrastructure partnership with the UK, featuring up to £11 billion in investments and 120,000 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs across multiple data centres. The initiative, unveiled during President Trump's state visit, represents the largest AI infrastructure rollout in UK history and supports the nation's sovereign AI capabilities through the Stargate UK programme.
The partnership involves multiple components across infrastructure development and workforce preparation. NVIDIA is enabling UK cloud partner Nscale to deploy 300,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs worldwide, with 60,000 GPUs specifically established in the UK. OpenAI will explore offtake up to 8,000 GPUs in Q1 2026 with potential to scale to 31,000 GPUs over time for specialist use cases including critical public services, regulated industries like finance, research projects and national security partnerships.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said: "The UK has been a longstanding pioneer of AI, and is now home to world-class researchers, millions of ChatGPT users, and a government that quickly recognised the potential of this technology. Stargate UK builds on this foundation to help accelerate scientific breakthroughs, improve productivity, and drive economic growth."
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang stated: "The United Kingdom is building the infrastructure for the AI industrial revolution — advancing science, transforming industries and creating new economic opportunities. We are at the big bang of intelligence, and the United Kingdom's Goldilocks ecosystem of world-class expertise, outstanding universities and vibrant industries is uniquely positioned to thrive in the age of AI."
The project extends beyond hardware deployment to include workforce development initiatives. OpenAI is bringing its OpenAI Academy to the UK to support the Government's ambition to upskill 7.5 million workers by 2030. The initiative follows the MoU OpenAI signed with the UK Government in July 2025 to explore infrastructure priorities and accelerate AI adoption.
Additional infrastructure developments include Nscale and Microsoft building the UK's most powerful supercomputer in Loughton with more than 24,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs. CoreWeave announced an advanced data centre in Scotland powered by renewable energy, while BlackRock committed up to £500 million to modernise UK data centres in partnership with Digital Gravity Partners.
The infrastructure deployment supports UK's national AI Opportunities Action Plan with sovereign compute capabilities enabling local processing for regulated industries and government services. The project spans multiple sites including Cobalt Park in the newly designated AI Growth Zone in the North East, establishing foundation for enterprise-scale AI deployment across finance, healthcare, and public sector applications.
The partnership positions the UK as a sovereign AI hub with local processing capabilities essential for regulated industries requiring data jurisdiction compliance. The £11 billion investment represents unprecedented commitment to national AI infrastructure, creating competitive advantages through reduced latency, enhanced security, and regulatory compliance for enterprise deployments. Success factors include partnership coordination between major technology vendors and alignment with government workforce development objectives supporting long-term economic transformation.