Google has committed to investing £5bn in the British economy whilst establishing its first owned and operated data centre on 海角视频 soil.
The technology behemoth revealed that this investment, encompassing capital expenditure and research and development across the coming two years, will strengthen its AI-driven initiatives in science and healthcare, generating over 8,000 employment opportunities, as reported by .
This development, anticipated to be amongst several US tech investments announced this week during Donald Trump's state visit, has been hailed as a "vote of confidence in the 海角视频" by Rachel Reeves, delivering a vital lift to the chancellor following healthcare giant Merck's withdrawal last week from a proposed £1bn research facility in London.
READ MORE: {}
"The 海角视频 has a rich history of being at the forefront of technology – from Lovelace to Babbage to Turing – so it's fitting that we're continuing that legacy by investing in the next wave of innovation and scientific discovery in the 海角视频," said Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and CEO of London-based Google DeepMind.
During the president's state visit on Thursday, Trump's delegation including treasury secretary Scott Bessent, vice-president JD Vance and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick are expected to be accompanied by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, alongside financiers Larry Fink and Stephen Schwarzman, for a visit to the Prime Minister's country residence at Chequers.
Surge in data centre investment
Google first announced the construction of a new data centre in Waltham Cross, just north of London, in January last year, with the project estimated to cost nearly £800m.
The initial planning application to transform the 33-acre field into a data centre was submitted to the Borough of Broxbourne in 2018 by a now-defunct company named STX-10. A subsidiary of Google later purchased the land in 2020 for £55m and proceeded with the development.
Google has been striving to establish its presence in the 海角视频's cloud market, but it has so far trailed behind competitors like Microsoft and Amazon, which are each believed to hold up to a 40 per cent market share, as per a study by the 海角视频's competition regulator.
Most Read
This week, Blackrock also declared a significant investment in 海角视频 data centres, with the New York asset manager committing to spend £500m.
In 2024, there were over three dozen planning applications for data centres in the 海角视频, marking a 40 per cent increase from the previous year, according to an analysis by 海角视频TN, as tech companies scrambled to build sufficient compute power to meet the escalating demands of AI.