iStock
Microsoft has announced it plans to invest £2.5bn in the UK over the next three years – the largest investment the company has made in the country to date.
With this investment, Microsoft has said it aims to support the UK's artificial intelligence (AI) sector by doubling the company’s data centre footprint in Britain and providing the infrastructure crucial for new AI models to work.
The funds will also support training and partnership programs, concentrating on AI safety and research, as well as looking at protecting public security while training for jobs in the new AI economy.
Microsoft president Brad Smith said the investment plan is “the most important infrastructure of the second quarter of the 21st century”.
In a blog post, the company said the investment will “help to meet the exploding demand for efficient, scalable and sustainable AI-specific compute power and the needs of the private and public sector waiting to take advantage of the latest cloud and AI breakthroughs”.
Over the last year, the UK has been looking to position itself as a global leader in the development of AI solutions. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has described Microsoft’s pledge as “a massive vote of confidence” that will drive “the UK’s ambition to be the next Silicon Valley”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the deal marked a “turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK”.
The investment is expected to provide over a million people with AI skills and bring more than 20,000 of the most advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) into Britain.
The AI sector in the UK currently contributes more than $4bn (£3.2bn) to the economy and employs about 50,000 people.
Earlier this month, the country hosted the first AI Safety Summit, which concluded with the signing of the Bletchley Declaration, described as a “landmark achievement” that signals a starting point in the conversations around the risks of AI technologies.
The document has been signed by representatives from the EU and 28 countries, including the US and China. Representatives of private companies – including Microsoft – were also present at the conference.
Microsoft is one of the largest investors in AI technologies. The company has announced the launch of its custom AI chips and has invested billions of dollars in AI start-up OpenAI, the firm behind popular chatbot ChatGPT.
In October, Microsoft announced its plans to spend A$5bn (£2.6bn) expanding its AI and cloud computing abilities in Australia over the next two years.
