Bill McDermott, Chairman, President and CEO of ServiceNow, speaks on CNBC's Squawk Box at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 17, 2024.
Adam Galese | CNBC
Enterprise software giant Service now AI-focused startup CoreWeave has announced plans to invest billions of dollars in the UK, in a vote of confidence for Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he looks to attract foreign investment.
ServiceNow said it will invest $1.5 billion in the UK over the next five years, while growing its UK business. The US-based company plans to expand its presence in the UK through new office space and grow its employee base beyond the 1,000 people it currently employs.
ServiceNow also said it will invest money in localizing data processing for its large language models (LLMs), AI models that rely on massive amounts of training data to be able to understand and generate text like a human.
The company said it would bring Nvidia This will help support “domain-specific LLMs” for UK customers and governments, ServiceNow said.
European policymakers and regulators are increasingly calling for so-called “AI sovereignty.” This refers to the idea that the technologies and data that support advanced AI systems should be stored within Europe, and more accurately reflect the culture and history of Europeans.
Meanwhile, cloud computing company CoreWeave, which rents out expensive GPUs to developers looking to train and run large AI models, said it will invest £750 million ($978.6 million) to support UK demand for AI infrastructure. It is its second major investment in the country after that. Announcing a £1 billion commitment in May.
Meanwhile, two US data center operators have also announced plans to invest billions in a UK company. One, CyrusOne, has said it plans to expand its investment in the country to £2.5 billion over the coming years, while another company, CloudHQ, has committed to developing a hub. New data. A £1.9bn data center campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire.
In total, cloud infrastructure investments amount to a total of £6.3 billion, according to the UK government.
“Today’s investment drumbeat is a vote of confidence in Britain and our approach to working with businesses to deliver sustainable growth for all,” British Technology Minister Peter Kyle said in a statement on Monday.
Skills upgrading programmes
ServiceNow said it also plans to introduce new skills programs in the UK that will reach 240,000 people.
“The UK is embracing technology transformation at scale. In this new era of artificial intelligence, the country continues to be a global leader in driving innovation to benefit all of its communities,” Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, said in a statement on Monday.
“Our investment accelerates the UK's push to use AI at work, empowering people, enriching experiences and strengthening community connections. Together, ServiceNow and our customers across the UK are delivering a future where technology works for everyone.”
The announcements came as part of the International Investment Summit, where British leader Keir Starmer is set to bring together 300 business leaders to encourage foreign investment.
ServiceNow, CoreWeave, CyrusOne and CloudHQ are not the only US tech companies betting big on the UK as a global destination for AI innovation. Earlier this year, Sales force It opened its first global AI hub in London, a space it uses to facilitate AI training and upskilling programs as well as foster industry collaboration.
The AI center forms part of a $4 billion investment that Salesforce committed to making in the UK over five years in June last year.
