NVIDIA is powering the U.K.’s push to build sovereign AI infrastructure at London Tech Week.
The launch of the U.K. Sovereign AI Industry Forum brings top firms like Babcock, BAE Systems, BT, National Grid, and Standard Chartered together to grow U.K. AI capacity and startup ecosystem.
The goal: make Britain an “AI maker, not an AI taker,” per PM Keir Starmer’s vision. 
Cloud provider Nscale will deploy 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs by 2026 to boost the U.K.’s AI infrastructure. Nebius also committed 4,000 Blackwell GPUs for scalable AI use in research, academia, and public services, including the NHS.
AI development is tightly linked to economic growth across U.K. regions. Public First says doubling AI data center capacity could add £36.5 billion annually to the economy.
U.K. Secretary of State Peter Kyle welcomed NVIDIA’s role:
“We have big plans when it comes to developing the next wave of AI innovations here in the U.K. — not only so we can deliver the economic growth needed for our Plan for Change, but maintain our position as a global leader.”
“Central to that is making sure we have the infrastructure to power AI, so I welcome NVIDIA setting up the U.K. Sovereign AI Industry Forum — bringing together leading British businesses to develop and deploy this across the U.K. so we can drive growth and opportunity.”
NVIDIA is also backing the government’s national AI skills drive. They’re opening a UK AI Technology Center for hands-on training in foundation models, embodied AI, and advanced computing.
Financial services get a boost too. The FCA will launch an AI-powered digital sandbox, built on NVIDIA tech and supported by NayaOne, for safe AI innovation in finance. Barclays Eagle Labs opened an Innovation Hub in London with NVIDIA backing, giving startups a path to the NVIDIA Inception program.
Universities are major players. Oxford leads the JADE consortium working on AI safety with NVIDIA tools. UCL is developing a digital human body twin using NVIDIA tech. Bristol’s Isambard-AI supercomputer runs on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips for AI safety and climate work. Manchester is using NVIDIA Earth-2 for pollution modeling.
Tech leaders like Wayve (autonomous vehicles), JBA Risk Management (climate risk), and Stability AI (generative AI) also run on NVIDIA foundations.
Startups such as Basecamp Research (drug discovery), Humanoid (robots), Relation (medicine), and Synthesia (AI video) benefit from NVIDIA Inception’s support.
Big firms are moving fast. BT pushes AI for autonomous operations. LSEG uses AI-driven data. NatWest improves operations and security with AI.
The U.K. is aiming to compete at the global AI level by combining government will, talent, and NVIDIA’s muscle.
Watch NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at NVIDIA GTC Paris at VivaTech.
