Keir Starmer Unveils £1.1 Billion AI Strategy at London Tech Week

Prime Minister Keir Starmer opened London Tech Week 2026 by unveiling a comprehensive industrial strategy to establish the United Kingdom as a global AI superpower. Central to this vision is a £1.1 billion sovereign compute strategy, which includes £750 million for a national AI supercomputer by 2030—with £400 million specifically for next-generation inference and specialized chips—and a £120 million hardware innovation program for chip design.

To complement state funding, Starmer secured significant private investment. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) committed up to £2 billion over five years to accelerate research and expand compute infrastructure through partnerships with the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London. Additionally, cloud provider Nebius pledged approximately £1.7 billion to expand its London R&D hub, and the British Business Bank committed £150 million to a hardware fund led by Playground Global.

Beyond infrastructure, the government launched AI-driven workforce initiatives, including a three-month trial of an AI job-search assistant and bootcamps for the unemployed. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall also announced AI training for 400,000 students in disadvantaged schools. Business Secretary Peter Kyle stated the state would take larger stakes in fast-growing UK firms to prevent a brain drain of talent to overseas markets.

Starmer concluded his announcements with a warning to tech companies regarding child safety, threatening legislation if firms fail to implement controls to prevent the transmission of explicit images, citing previous government actions against X's Grok platform.