Google owner reveals £5bn AI investment in UK ahead of Trump visit.

The world’s fourth-biggest company, Google owner Alphabet, has announced a £5bn ($6.8bn) investment in UK artificial intelligence (AI).

The money will be used for infrastructure and scientific research over the next two years – the first of several massive US investments being unveiled ahead of US President Donald Trump’s state visit.

Google’s president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat told BBC News in an exclusive interview there were “profound opportunities in the UK” for its “pioneering work in advanced science”.

The company will officially open a $1bn (£735m) data centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Tuesday.

The investment will expand this site and also include funding for London-based DeepMind, run by British Nobel Prize winner Sir Demis Hassabis, which deploys AI to revolutionise advanced scientific research.

Ms Porat said there was “now a US-UK special technology relationship… there’s downside risks that we need to work on together to mitigate, but there’s also tremendous opportunity in economic growth, in social services, advancing science”.

She pointed to the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan as helping the investment, but said “there’s still work to be done to land that”, and that capturing the upside of the AI boom “was not a foregone conclusion”.

Reeves said the investment was “a powerful vote of confidence in the UK economy” and showed “the strength of our partnership with the US”.

The US administration had pressed the UK to water down its Digital Services Tax on companies, including Google, in talks this year, but it is not expected to feature in this week’s announcements.

Further multi-billion-dollar UK investments are expected from US giants over the next 24 hours.

The pound has strengthened, analysts say, partly on expectations of interest rate changes and a flow of US investment.

On Monday, Google’s owner Alphabet became the fourth company to be worth more than $3 trillion in terms of total stock market value, joining other technology giants Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple.

Google’s share price has surged in the past month after US courts decided not to order the breakup of the company.

Source: BBC