This article is part of The Week Ahead LinkedIn special. Visit HERE to sign up and stay updated.

As Air Force One touches down in the UK this week for US President Donald Trump’s state visit, its hold is packed with promises of investment in the UK’s AI infrastructure.

In an announcement that has the potential to mirror the unveiling of Project Stargate at the White House in January, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and NScale are among the firms that are expected to pledge multi-billions of dollars next week, per various reports.

Investment heavyweights BlackRock and Blackstone are also expected to be present at a dinner function, with tech CEO’s Sam Altman and Jensen Huang also in attendance.

What form the investment will take is as yet unknown.

If as significant as promised, it presents UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer the opportunity to validate his AI Opportunity Action Plan, and reaffirm commitments to making the UK an AI leader.

Starmer has already spoken alongside Huang this year, revealing a £1 billion (US£1.35 billion) investment in AI training at UK Tech Week.

NScale’s involvement reinforces the cloud computing and data centre operator as OpenAI’s preferred partner in Europe, following its involvement in Stargate Norway, which was announced in late July.

NScale also committed to investing in its home market at London Tech Week, pledging to deploy 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs by 2026.

As for Blackrock, it has been reported by SkyNews to be planning a £500 million (US$677 million) investment alongside Digital Gravity Partners, which will focus on acquiring and upgrading older facilities.

Can the promises live up to the hype?

OpenAI’s US$500 billion pledge to the US in January, alongside Oracle, Softbank and MGX, naturally sparked excitement among the infrastructure world.

But as we covered recently, the promises to deploy that capital over just four years, and with US$100 billion to be deployed immediately, appear to have been largely overstated.

Since then, Oracle is said to have landed a giant US$300 billion cloud computing deal with OpenAI, but looking into projections for growth in its cloud business and its regulatory disclosures, the bulk of that is unlikely to be realised until Trump leaves the White House.

That’s in the US.

In the UK, energy prices are higher, land is more difficult to find, grid connections are taking close to a decade in some cases and government policy remains undefined.

Following a House of Lords roundtable organised by The Tech Capital, we published a Whitepaper exploring further the challenges the UK faces. Read that here.

OpenAI, NVIDIA and Nscale are likely to make big promises as well, but the execution of their plans will ultimately define the growth of the UK’s AI ambitions, not their words.

AI Growth Zone to be announced?

The attention that the US heavy hitters will draw from the national and international press also means we could see progress on one of the key elements of the UK’s AI plan – the confirmation of new AI Growth Zones.

AI Growth Zones are dedicated locations which will have enhanced access to power and support for planning approvals.

Starmer has been reported to give his “full backing” to the 500,000-square-metre campus at the Teesworks site, a former steelworks billed as Europe’s largest brownfield redevelopment.

That project, which secured outline planning permission from Redcar and Cleveland Council in August, has sparked controversy as its development could derail plans from BP to build a Blue Hydrogen plant.

The BP plans were backed by Energy Secretary Ed Milliband, but local press reports claim that the site will soon be unveiled as the next growth zone, and that a taskforce to oversee it has been developed.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen said Starmer has given his full backing to Teesside becoming the UK’s “premier AI growth zone”, as reported by The Yorkshire Post.

Other reports claim that Google is involved in the project.

An announcement on growth zones is long overdue, and next week could prove to be the perfect time for Starmer to win some credit, while the industry is focused on the US giants’ plans.

When submissions were opened for applicants in February, the government said applicants should apply before May 31st if they wished to be selected “in the summer of 2025”.

A developer who has submitted a project to become an AI Growth Zone told The Tech Capital:

“We have been in reasonably regular contact with DSIT. They had originally stated that ‘some projects would be allocated by mid-summer’ which we read as pre-parliamentary recess (22nd July) but that has obviously slipped.”

The mix of US investment, government backing, and the push for new AI Growth Zones could make this week a turning point for the UK’s role in artificial intelligence.

If the plans go ahead, Starmer will gain momentum for his AI Opportunity Action Plan and show the world that the UK is serious about becoming a leader in this field.

But the real test will be turning big announcements into real progress, without delays or further setbacks.

The week ahead:

Outside of the flurry of news we’re expecting to be unveiled in the UK this week, we’ll be keeping a close eye on Nebius’s earnings report.

The Amsterdam-headquartered and NASDAQ-listed neocloud staked its claim among the major players of AI Infrastructure this week, snagging a US$17.4 billion deal to provide AI cloud services to Microsoft from a data centre being developed by DayOne in New Jersey.

This was followed by news that the firm is raising in excess of US$3 billion to fund future growth and help bankroll the capex required to meet its obligations.

INDUSTRY CALENDAR

• The Tech Capital APAC Finance Forum Singapore – 24-25 September 2025 LEARN MORE
• infra/STRUCTURE Las Vegas – 15-16 October 2025 LEARN MORE
• The Tech Capital Middle East & Africa Finance Forum Abu Dhabi – 24 November 2025 LEARN MORE
• The Tech Capital InfraAI Global Summit Athenian Riviera – 30 March – 01 April 2026 LEARN MORE
• The Tech Capital International Finance Forum & Global Awards London– 11-12 May 2026 LEARN MORE