Four US-based companies are set to invest £6.3 billion ($8.22bn) in UK data center infrastructure.

The planned investments from Cloud HQ, CyrusOne, CoreWeave, and ServiceNow were announced as part of the UK government’s investment summit, taking place in London today.

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CyrusOne is building a new campus at Iver, Surrey – CyrusOne

Technology secretary Peter Kyle described the investments as “a vote of confidence in Britain.” He said: “Data centers power our day-to-day lives and boost innovation in growing sectors like AI. This is why only last month, I took steps to class UK data centers as Critical National Infrastructure giving the industry the ultimate reassurance the UK will always be a safe home for their investment.”

CloudHQ moves forward with Didcot data center

Washington DC-based CloudHQ confirmed at the summit that it is pressing ahead with a £1.9bn ($2.48bn) data center campus at Didcot Power Station. DCD has previously reported the company is working with AWS to deliver the project, which was granted planning permission in 2021 and was set, at the time, to offer 84MW capacity.

Hossein Fateh, CloudHQ’s founder and CEO, said: “We are very excited to deliver a hyper-scale campus in the UK that is truly an extension of Slough due to our private diverse fiber optic route.

“Our site enables us to build out our campus environment to provide scale and density to meet our customers’ requirements.”

CNI designation key to CyrusOne's UK data center push

CyrusOne will spend an additional £2.5 billion ($3.3bn) in the UK over the coming years. It is planning a 90MW campus in Iver, Buckinghamshire, which would offer 63,000 sqm (678,000 sq ft) of data center facilities in a plot of 16.59 hectares. The site will have 10 data halls across six buildings and include a new on-site substation. Plans, initially drawn up in 2022, were resubmitted earlier this year in an attempt to ensure they comply with Iver’s local plan.

Eric Schwartz, president and CEO at CyrusOne, said: “The UK government’s recent CNI designation was a strong signal that data centers are of strategic importance to the UK economy.

“It has provided CyrusOne with the confidence to continue its expansion in the UK and support the government’s policy ambition to become a center of excellence for digital services, technology innovation, and AI.”

Existing infrastructure upgraded

Meanwhile, IT services provider ServiceNow will spend £1.15bn ($1.5bn) updating its existing UK data centers over the next five years, while AI data center provider CoreWeave is plunging another £750 million ($978m) on infrastructure in Britain, on top of the £1bn ($1.3bn) it pledged to invest in May.

The government says today's investment news means the total investment in UK data centers since it took office in July is over £25 billion ($32bn). However, £10bn of this relates to Blackstone's plan for a hyperscale data center in Blyth, Northumberland, which was first announced in April, when the previous government was still in power. The purchase of the data center site, which will be operated by Blackstone subsidiary QTS, was confirmed last month.

Since taking office, the UK government has been attempting to woo more data center operators as it draws up a new Industrial Strategy to boost investment in Britain.