Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has announced a massive £5bn ($6.8bn) investment in artificial intelligence in the United Kingdom, just days before US President Donald Trump’s state visit.
The money will be channelled into research and infrastructure over the next two years, with London-based DeepMind and a new £735m data centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, at the heart of the expansion.
Alphabet’s president and chief investment officer, Ruth Porat, told BBC News that the UK remains a global leader in advanced science. “There are profound opportunities in the UK for its pioneering work in advanced science,” she said.
She added that a “US-UK special technology relationship” was taking shape, stressing that both countries must work together to manage the risks of AI while also unlocking new growth.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to officially open the Waltham Cross facility on Tuesday. The centre, designed with energy efficiency in mind, will be air-cooled rather than water-cooled, with captured heat redirected to schools and homes.
Google has also signed a deal with Shell to ensure that 95 percent of its UK operations will be powered by carbon-free energy. “Obviously wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine every hour of the day,” Porat explained, but said Google remained committed to renewables.
Alphabet, now worth over $3 trillion in market value, has surged in recent weeks following a US court decision not to break up the company. Google’s shift to becoming an “AI First” business under CEO Sundar Pichai has boosted its share price, with Porat saying, “it’s that performance which has resulted in that metric.”
The investment comes at a time when other American giants are expected to announce multi-billion-dollar commitments to the UK. Analysts also say the pound has strengthened partly due to the expected inflow of US investment.
Porat admitted there are worries about how AI could affect jobs but insisted the technology can also create new industries. “It would be naive to assume there isn’t a downside,” she said. “If companies just use AI to find efficiencies, we’re not going to see the upside. But AI is collaborating with people rather than replacing them.”
Encouraging workers to embrace the change, she added, “Each one of us needs to start using AI so you can understand how it can be an assistance to what you’re doing, as opposed to actually fearing it and watching from the sidelines.”
