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UK's Starmer hails 'Tech Prosperity Deal' with US

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US firms including Microsoft ( MSFT ), Google pledge big UK

investments

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Pact announced as Trump's second state visit to UK gets

underway

By Paul Sandle and Sam Tabahriti

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Britain and the United

States have agreed a technology pact to boost ties in AI,

quantum computing and civil nuclear energy, with top U.S. firms

led by Microsoft ( MSFT ) pledging 31 billion pounds ($42 billion) in UK

investments.

The "Tech Prosperity Deal" is part of U.S. President Donald

Trump's second state visit to Britain, which will include a day

of pomp at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, hosted by King Charles

and the royal family.

Britain said the pact included joint efforts to develop AI

models for healthcare, expand quantum computing capabilities and

streamline civil nuclear projects. It added that it would

support economic growth, scientific research and energy security

in both countries.

STARMER UNDER PRESSURE TO BOOST ECONOMIC GROWTH

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the deal had the

potential to shape the future of millions of people on both

sides of the Atlantic, and deliver growth and security.

The U.S. is Britain's single largest country trading

partner, and its big tech companies have already invested

billions of dollars in their UK operations.

Starmer, under pressure to reverse years of weak economic

growth, now wants to pitch Britain as a destination for further

investment by opting for the light touch regulation favoured by

the United States in areas such as AI, as opposed to the more

interventionist approach of the European Union.

The Trump administration has criticised European online

safety laws and digital taxes, including those in Britain, but

they were not part of the discussions over the pact.

US TECH FIRMS INVEST IN THE UK

Under the deals announced, chipmaker Nvidia ( NVDA ) said it

would deploy 120,000 graphics processing units across Britain -

its largest rollout in Europe to date.

It is working to deploy up to 60,000 Grace Blackwell Ultra

chips with UK-based Nscale, which will partner OpenAI in a UK

leg of the U.S. company's giant Stargate project and tie-up with

Microsoft ( MSFT ) to establish Britain's largest AI supercomputer.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) said it would invest 22 billion pounds in total to

expand cloud and AI infrastructure as well as in the

supercomputer, which will be in Loughton, north-east London.

Satya Nadella, chair and CEO of Microsoft ( MSFT ), said it wanted to

ensure that America remained a trusted and reliable tech partner

for Britain. Its president, Brad Smith, said relations had

improved hugely since the "dark days" before the UK's antitrust

regulator dropped its opposition to Microsoft's ( MSFT ) acquisition of

Activision Blizzard, saying he felt "enormously better".

David Hogan, vice president for enterprise at Nvidia ( NVDA ), told

reporters the investments would "truly make the UK an AI maker,

not an AI taker".

Google announced a 5 billion-pound investment, including a

new data centre in Waltham Cross, north of London, and continued

support for AI research through its DeepMind project.

Cloud computing firm CoreWeave ( CRWV ) said its 1.5 billion

pound backing would fund energy-efficient data centres in

partnership with Scottish firm DataVita, bringing its total UK

investment to 2.5 billion pounds.

Other firms announcing commitments include Salesforce ( CRM )

, Scale AI, BlackRock ( BLK ), Oracle, Amazon

Web Services and AI Pathfinder, with investments

ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion pounds.

($1 = 0.7336 pounds)