Microsoft and Nvidia are committing a combined $45 billion to a sweeping data center expansion in the United Kingdom, marking the country’s largest-ever AI infrastructure investment.
The U.S. tech giants announced the initiative Tuesday, unveiling plans to partner with U.K.-based hyperscaler Nscale to build a new supercomputer facility in Loughton, east of London. The move underscores how global cloud and AI leaders are accelerating investments in Europe amid surging enterprise demand and tightening regulatory oversight.
Microsoft’s $30 billion commitment will run through 2028, with roughly $15 billion earmarked for capital expenditures tied to cloud and AI infrastructure buildouts, including new data centers. The remaining $15 billion will go toward AI research, model development, and related projects, the company said.
“This marks Microsoft’s largest financial commitment in the country to date,” the company noted, highlighting that the new investment builds on a $3.2 billion pledge from 2023 to expand cloud facilities in London, Wales, and potentially Northern England.
Nvidia, meanwhile, will spend £11 billion ($15 billion) deploying 120,000 Blackwell Ultra GPUs across U.K. facilities. The effort will be carried out in partnership with Nscale and U.S.-based CoreWeave, one of the fastest-growing GPU cloud providers.
As part of the same effort, Nvidia and OpenAI are also joining forces with Nscale to launch Stargate U.K., an AI infrastructure initiative modeled on the White House-backed Stargate U.S. project announced earlier this year.
“The global call for additional natural gas infrastructure continues to be strong, and we are well positioned to meet this growing demand for cleaner energy, with approximately 24 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of expected LNG production capacity currently under construction, Train 5 nearing a positive FID, and significant additional expansion capacity under development at the Rio Grande LNG site,” said Matt Schatzman, NextDecade’s CEO, in the release.
Industry analysts say hyperscaler investment has shifted from large regional expansions to nation-specific mega-projects, designed not only to handle demand but also to meet data sovereignty and AI compliance rules.
According to market researcher Dell’Oro Group, global data center spending surged 43% year-over-year in Q2 2025 to hit $158 billion. Microsoft alone invested $24.2 billion in CapEx in the quarter, largely to expand its Azure cloud footprint.
That trend is accelerating: Microsoft has pledged to spend $30 billion in CapEx in Q1 of fiscal 2026, which ends this September.
Other hyperscalers are moving quickly in the U.K. as well.
These projects reflect the 21.5% increase in global end-user cloud and AI spending, which Gartner estimates will reach $723 billion this year. AI-specific investment is climbing even faster, projected to surge 50% year-over-year to $1.5 trillion in 2025.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a recorded message that the company’s U.K. expansion would complement additional capital expenditures in the U.S., where announcements are expected later this week. The company is also working with Nscale and Norwegian energy company Aker on a $6.2 billion AI infrastructure development in Norway.
For Nvidia, the U.K. expansion is part of a wider rollout of more than 300,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs across the U.S., Portugal, Norway, and Britain — a sign of its dominance in AI chips and cloud partnerships.
With data sovereignty, regulatory requirements, and AI adoption rising rapidly, the U.K. is positioning itself as a European hub for hyperscale AI infrastructure. The combined investments from Microsoft and Nvidia represent not only a technical leap forward but also a geopolitical signal of confidence in the country’s role in the global AI race.
Originally reported by Matt Ashare in Construction Dive.
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