Partners across channel welcome US tech investments

The decision by several high-profile US tech firms to invest billions in the UK has been welcomed by several partners working with the firms involved.

The past couple of days have seen investment pledges from Microsoft, Google and a significant investment by private equity player Blackstone that total £150bn, with the promise of generating more than 7,000 jobs.

The vast majority of the investment, £90bn worth, is coming from Blackstone as it puts money into building the infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft has committed to spending £22bn in the UK over the next four years, and Google is pledging a further £4bn over the next two years as it expands an existing datacentre in Hertfordshire.

Brad Smith, vice-chair and president of Microsoft, penned a blog post talking of the special relationship between the US and the UK, which was being emphasised this week with the Trump state visit.

“Microsoft is announcing a $30bn investment we will make in AI infrastructure and ongoing operations across the United Kingdom during the four years from 2025 through 2028,” he wrote. “This marks the largest financial commitment we’ve ever made in the UK. It includes $15bn in capital expenditures to build out the UK’s cloud and AI infrastructure. This investment will enable us to build the country’s largest supercomputer – with more than 23,000 NVIDIA GPUs – in partnership with Nscale.

“This investment is designed not only to meet customer demand, but to strengthen the economic ties that benefit both sides of the Atlantic. It also marks a significant step forward in the UK-US Technology Partnership, demonstrating how close collaboration is driving progress under the AI Action Plans of president Donald Trump and prime minister Keir Starmer,” he added.

Phoenix Software’s director of cloud solutions Craig Taylor was among those welcoming the decision by Microsoft to invest billions in the UK over the next few years: “This announcement is highly positive in terms of the commitment Microsoft are making in the UK, as a leading Microsoft services partner in the UK delivering Copilot across both public and private sector, the opportunities for government and the wider economy are clear.

“We expect this continued investment to give confidence to many organisations we are working with on the initial pilot phases, through to company-wide implementations, that their investment in AI will be matched by the hyperscalers,” he added.

There was also support for closer ties on the tech front from across the wider vendor community. Matt Harris, senior vice-president and managing director for Hewlett Packard Enterprise UK, Ireland, Middle East & Africa, was keen to stress the positives from increased investment and collaboration.

“It’s fantastic to see the UK and US sign their first-ever tech agreement, investing billions to boost the UK’s AI infrastructure and speed up world-leading AI research. It comes at the right time as we see the rest of Europe accelerating AI infrastructure build-out,” he said.

“To secure long-term competitiveness, the UK must invest in sovereign AI data centres and national supercomputing capabilities, to realise its ambition to be an ‘AI maker, not an AI taker’. Developing and supporting these national assets will not only drive performance and innovation at scale, but also safeguard the resilience and strategic independence necessary in an increasingly data-driven world.”