U.S. and U.K. leaders are aiming to formally sign an expansive technology partnership on Thursday as part of President Donald Trump’s state visit with U.K. leadership, according to sources familiar with the planning.
The details of the Tech Prosperity Deal, published on Tuesday, note that three emerging technologies will shape the partnership: artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences and technologies, and nuclear technology. Major U.S. companies — namely NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and CoreWeave — jointly committed 31 billion British pounds to support the U.K.’s AI infrastructure.
Semiconductor chip manufacturing, quantum computer development and data center development are some of the core investments on which the partnership will focus.
“By teaming-up with world-class companies from both the UK and US, we’re laying the foundations for a future where together we are world leaders in the technology of tomorrow, creating highly skilled jobs, putting more money in people’s pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a news release on the deal.
U.K.-based companies are also bringing their capabilities to U.S. initiatives. Oxford Quantum Circuits, a quantum computer company, has installed a quantum computer in New York City, while British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings will collaborate with NVIDIA on forming the later companies’ Grace Blackwell chips.
Both countries will also work together to build new nuclear power stations to expedite commercial fusion solutions and assist in the energy demand emerging systems like AI and quantum computing will demand.
“From the UK’s perspective, it gets a huge amount of investment to boost its own AI ecosystem, and really it’s a massive vote of confidence for that ecosystem and the potential that it has,” Ayesha Bhatti, the head of digital policy for the UK and EU at the Center for Data Innovation told Nextgov/FCW, adding that she, too, had been told the signing would take place Thursday.
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