London Tech Week’s opening saw UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang share the stage, marking a pivotal moment where artificial intelligence shifts from the realm of startups to core government policy. Addressing the gathered crowd under Olympia’s steel rafters, Huang declared that, due to artificial intelligence, every sector in the UK would become a technology industry. Starmer outlined his administration’s ambition to harness artificial intelligence across every governmental department, highlighting the technology’s potential to transform daily life for citizens and solidify the UK’s position as a global hub for cutting-edge research and investment.
A series of significant government-NVIDIA collaborations were revealed. The UK will invest roughly £1 billion in artificial intelligence research compute by 2030, starting immediately. Initiatives include a national artificial intelligence skills training program backed by the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute, as well as the launch of an NVIDIA AI Technology Center focused on breakthroughs in embodied artificial intelligence, materials science, and climate modeling. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is deploying NVIDIA technology within a new innovation sandbox to ensure secure and responsible artificial intelligence experimentation, while the two are also cooperating to speed up native 6G artificial intelligence research and deployment. The country’s most powerful supercomputer, Isambard AI, powered by NVIDIA GH200s, is slated to become fully operational this summer.
The UK’s efforts are part of a broader European surge in artificial intelligence infrastructure and policy. In Sweden, NVIDIA is building national artificial intelligence systems with partners from pharmaceuticals to finance. Germany is constructing a €250 million NVIDIA-based supercomputer, and France’s Paris region prepares to host the continent’s largest artificial intelligence campus, a 1.4 GW facility co-sponsored by tech companies and government funds. Huang emphasized the field’s explosive growth, noting artificial intelligence has advanced a millionfold in the past decade. Next, at NVIDIA GTC Paris during VivaTech, new product and policy announcements are expected, promising further leaps in regional technology leadership and sovereign artificial intelligence capabilities across Europe.
