Sep 18, 2025 Current Resources

US tech giants pledge $42 billion in UK investment as Trump tours Blighty

America and the UK have announced a $42 billion (£31 billion) trade pact, funded by Microsoft, Google, and others, that predicts bit barns will spring up over Britain's green and pleasant Land. But there's a lot more than money involved.

The Brits are billing the Tech Prosperity Deal as a "historic" event in transatlantic trade cooperation. Besides infrastructure spending, the two nations will set up technology sharing agreements in the fields of AI, quantum computing, and nuclear research, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.

"This Tech Prosperity Deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the US, shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic," he said in a statement.

"By teaming-up with world-class companies from both the UK and US, we’re laying the foundations for a future where together we are world leaders in the technology of tomorrow, creating highly skilled jobs, putting more money in people’s pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom."

Officials clearly worked out the trade pact far in advance of the announcement, which came within hours of President Trump arriving in the UK at the start of his second official state visit. The US president spent his first day hobnobbing with the royal family, leaving no time to chat with the UK Prime Minister about it.

But the government release shares some interesting, and occasionally disturbing details about what exactly is involved in this Anglo-American tech embrace.

Who's spending what?

The headline-grabbing part of this deal is the cash investments by big tech companies and their suppliers. The deal is primarily about funding, although whether it's a product of deal making or just a coordination of investment strategy releases is up for question.

"Whether it's something that 'companies would have done anyway' is impossible to know, but it does represent significant new investment which could lead to job creation and economic benefits," Stephen Minton, IDC's group VP of data and analytics, told The Register.

"My initial reaction was that it could lead to tangible benefits in the next 5-10 years, depending on execution and attracting more investment. This deal alone isn't going to drive a hyper-surge in UK GDP growth, but I don't see anything negative in it, and it could be a step towards attracting more AI investment to the UK."

Microsoft is ponying up the most cash, going on a $30 billion (£22 billion) spending spree in the UK over the next three years to build data processing and AI bit barns.

This is in line with Redmond's strategy. Britain was the home of its first European office back in 1982, and it's been building out in the UK for a while, with more than 6,000 staff in the country now. Microsoft said this was the biggest investment round for the UK in its history, according to the government statement. It's not clear where they'll be spending the cash, as datacenters are sited based on a wide variety of factors related to cost and available infrastructure, but the company's biggest HQ is in Reading, just outside London, and the company's current datacenters operate in London and nearby, as well as in Wales.

The deal press release also cites Google, which is investing $6.83 billion (£5 billion) in building datacenters over the next two years. However, this plan has been in the works since last year. They just hadn't stated where yet, but today we learned it was just outside London's infamous M25 ring road.

Salesforce is chucking $2 billion (£1.4 billion) at the Brits in the announcement, an increase from its $4 billion five-year investment plan announced in 2023. The funding is going for R&D and AI datacenters, but Salesforce's first bit barn is in, you guessed it, the heart of London.

It's a similar story with the $683 million (£500 million) promised by private equity biz Blackrock. A fifth of that sum is going to be spent in datacenters just to the west of London, although it states it's also investing in "datacentres across the country."

Scale AI is also spending $53 million (£39 million) on expansion in the UK. However, this will be to expand its European headquarters in the nation's capital.

The exceptions to the London-centric rule are Coreweave, which is building a bit barn in Scotland, and then OpenAI and Nscale, who plan a UK center for the Stargate AI project in the economically-depressed northeast of England.

While Nvidia is not investing directly, the AI shovel-maker has allocated 120,000 GPUs to the country, which the government claims is its biggest European GPU commitment to date. This number includes "up to" 60,000 Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs specifically for the Stargate UK project.

And then there are the knowledge deals

Aside from the geographically spotty investment strategy, there's more in the trade deal that could have a direct impact on the UK.

The deal will "make it quicker for companies to build new nuclear power stations by speeding up the time it takes for a nuclear project to get a license," the UK government said.

While micronuke reactors are all the rage in the US at the moment, it's unclear how Brits will feel about having mini-piles next door. They are needed – the UK's power infrastructure is creaking under the strain of yet more datacenters and some off-the-grid output could ease the load on the power network.

The deal also includes working on nuclear fusion, adding the UK's brain power to the race, much as it did with fission in the 1930s and 40s. But this looks more like a statement of interest rather than a serious proposal.

The same looks to be true for quantum. The two countries will establish a joint taskforce to investigate quantum technology, but there are no firm goals or investment plans stated.

When it comes to AI, the word historic gets chucked around a lot, but there's no real promise of actual technology exchange. Instead, we get the usual task forces and consultant committees that seem so prevalent in the science section of the bill. Specifically, the nations will collaborate on using AI in health care, space exploration, and nuclear fusion, the release said.

The long-term effects of the trade pact have huge potential, if they are carried out. It all depends on whether both sides are willing to put in the necessary resources and expertise.

"Leadership in this technology among allies is not a zero-sum contest," said Ayesha Bhatti, head of digital policy for the UK and EU at the Center for Data Innovation.

"The UK is securing major investment in its AI infrastructure and advancing its AI-powered public service agenda, while the US is deepening collaboration with one of the world’s strongest research partners"

Others disagree. Nick Clegg, the former deputy Prime Minister and Meta flack, said the deal was a bad one for Britain, as it relies on US companies to build on British soil, rather than investing in homegrown competitors.

"In a sense, this US-UK tech deal is just another version of the United Kingdom holding on to Uncle Sam’s coat-tails," he told the Royal Television Society conference on Wednesday, saying it made Britain a "vassal state."

"We just have to be a little bit more realistic about our predicament and a little bit firmer about what we can do ourselves, rather than what I think we’re seeing with this US-UK tech deal – which is basically just taking sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley." ®