Starmer opens London Tech Week with £1bn AI boost

London Tech Week 2025 has kicked off with a set of initiatives to bolster the UK’s sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Prime minister Keir Starmer opened the event, announcing an extra £1bn to boost AI infrastructure in the UK, in a bid to convert the country from “an AI taker to an AI maker”.

According to Starmer, the funding will enable the UK to grow its high-performance computing capacity by a factor of 20, representing, “a huge increase in the size and power of Britain’s AI engine”.

Starmer said the government recognised the regulatory barriers that could curb the UK’s AI ambitions, but noted that the challenge for adoption is a far greater one than regulatory barriers.

“One of the biggest barriers is skills,” he said. “There isn’t a conversation about AI and tech and growth and investment and business that doesn’t in the end come back to this question of skills.”

In a move to develop home-grown talent, he unveiled a partnership with 11 major companies to train 7.5 million workers in AI by 2030, along with a commitment from chipmaker Nvidia to partner on a new AI talent pipeline.

Starmer said the government’s Tech First training programme aims to train one million young people in tech skills, which he said will be crucial for their future. This involves putting £185m of AI investment in the UK’s education system, starting in secondary schools, to bolster support for subjects such as computer science. 

Starmer also described a new scholarship programme for high-flying students to support “the best and brightest postgrads so they can focus their research on the next frontier”, he said.

Along with the commitment to bolstering skills, there is also a new initiative with Nvidia, called Sovereign AI Industry Forum, announced at the start of London Tech Week, which includes several major UK businesses, including Babcock, BAE Systems, BT, National Grid and Standard Chartered. The forum’s goal is to strengthen the nation’s economic security by advancing sovereign AI infrastructure and accelerating the growth of the UK AI startup ecosystem.

“We have big plans when it comes to developing the next wave of AI innovations here in the UK, not only so we can deliver the economic growth needed for our Plan for Change, but maintain our position as a global leader,” said Peter Kyle, secretary of state for science, innovation and technology.

Among the firms building AI infrastructure as part of the Nvidia initiative is cloud provider Nscale, which announced its commitment to deploy UK AI infrastructure with 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units by the end of 2026. Nscale said the facility would help position the UK as a global leader in AI, supporting innovation, job creation and the development of a thriving domestic AI ecosystem.

Backed by over $28bn in private investment since 2013, the government said the UK is a global AI hub, leading Europe in newly funded AI startups and total private AI investment through 2024.

In a recent Computer Weekly article, Julian David, CEO of TechUK, noted that the UK cannot risk a two-tier economy, where only the most digitally mature businesses benefit from the next wave of innovation, such as agentic AI and quantum. “Improved support for digital adoption, particularly for SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] and scaleups, will build resilience, unlock productivity and ensure businesses are ready for what’s next,” he said.