Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of the American AI chip giant NVIDIA, declared that “the UK is going to be an AI superpower” as he unveiled a £500 million investment in a British business.
Speaking ahead of his attendance at a state banquet with King Charles and Donald Trump, Huang revealed that NVIDIA is taking an equity stake in UK-headquartered cloud computing firm Nscale.
He projected the company could generate as much as £50 billion in revenue over the coming six years.
“We’re here to announce that the UK is going to be an AI superpower,” Huang told a London press conference.
The news comes just two weeks after the business launched a new base in Mayfair, with plans to onboard 100 AI specialists in the location after the next year.
It is described as an ‘AI hyperscaler’ and builds tech platforms alongside its own energy efficient AI-focused data centres.
Following the partnership between the two companies, a video of Huang and Nscale CEO, Josh Payne, was shared to LinkedIn, with Huang gifting Payne a signed bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky.
The head of the chip-making giant said: “To Josh, incredible launch, $0-50 billion in 18 months.
“I’ve never seen a startup take off like that before. There’s a rocket ship but I think you’re on a starship.”
Payne replied: “We couldn’t do so without your support, I sincerely appreciate it.”
The announcement is part of a much wider push by NVIDIA to accelerate what Huang described as the “AI industrial revolution” in the UK.
Working with partners including CoreWeave, Microsoft and Nscale itself, the company plans to build the nation’s next generation of AI infrastructure.
By the end of 2026, these collaborations will see the creation of AI factories capable of serving advanced models, such as those developed by OpenAI, to drive the UK’s sovereign AI ambitions and economic growth.
The initiative follows the collaboration unveiled by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Huang at London Tech Week three months earlier.
As part of the plans, NVIDIA and its partners will deploy 120,000 of the company’s new Blackwell Ultra GPUs and invest up to £11bn in local data centres, the largest rollout of its kind in the UK.
The Santa Clara-based business will also support Nscale’s global expansion with 300,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs worldwide.
Starmer added: “In this age of AI, I want the UK to be the destination of choice for companies at the forefront of technological change, and renowned for harnessing homegrown talent and building sovereign capability.
“These major announcements mark a decisive step towards the UK becoming a world leader in AI, meaning more jobs and investment, more money in people’s pockets and transformed public services – all part of our Plan for Change.”
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