ServiceNow, Coreweave and others to invest $8.2 billion in UK data centers to fuel AI growth

Enterprise software giant ServiceNow and AI-focused startup CoreWeave announced plans to invest billions of dollars in the U.K., in a vote of confidence for Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he looks to attract foreign investment.

ServiceNow said it would invest $1.5 billion in the U.K. over the next five years, as it grows its U.K. business. The U.S.-based company plans to expand its U.K. presence with new office space and grow its staff base beyond the 1,000 people it currently employs.

ServiceNow also said it would invest the cash into localizing the processing of data for its large language models (LLMs), artificial intelligence models that rely on vast quantities of training data to be able to understand and generate text like a human.

The firm said it would bring Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units) to its data centers based in London and the Welsh city of Newport to support processing of data on its LLMs within the U.K. This will help support "domain specific LLMs" for U.K. clients and governments, ServiceNow said.

Policymakers and regulators in Europe have increasingly been calling for so-called AI sovereignty. This refers to the idea that the technologies and data underpinning advanced artificial intelligence systems should be stored within Europe, and more accurately reflect the culture and history of Europeans.

Cloud computing firm CoreWeave, meanwhile, which rents out expensive GPUs to developers looking to train and run large AI models, said it would invest £750 million ($978.6 million) to support U.K. demand for AI infrastructure — its second major investment in the country after announcing a £1 billion commitment in May.

Meanwhile, two U.S. data center operators also announced plans to invest billions in the