Schneider Electric hosted its first “Partnering for AI-Ready Data Centres” event in London, bringing together senior leaders across technology, energy and infrastructure to chart a path for the UK’s AI future. The gathering coincided with a series of major announcements—including OpenAI’s Stargate UK supercomputer in Loughton, NVIDIA’s largest European GPU rollout, and the launch of the North East AI Growth Zone—cementing the UK’s ambition to lead in AI innovation.
Timed with the UK-US Tech Prosperity Deal, which unlocked a record £31 billion in investment, the event underscored the scale of opportunity. Discussions centred on workforce skills, sovereign data centre capacity, energy demand and the need for sustainable innovation in power and cooling systems to support AI workloads. “The UK has a huge opportunity to become an AI-maker,” said Mark Yeeles, Vice President of Secure Power UK&I at Schneider Electric. “But it will require deep collaboration across the ecosystem—from providers and operators to investors and government.”
Speakers included Anthony Hills of NVIDIA UK&I, Tom Gibbons of Dell Technologies and Mark Bjornsgaard of Deep Green, alongside senior voices from Schneider Electric.
NVIDIA reinforced its role in the UK’s AI infrastructure through a £2 billion pledge to boost the startup ecosystem and a partnership with Nscale to deploy up to 60,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs domestically. Other collaborations include R&D projects with Oxford Quantum Circuits and work with techUK on AI and robotics initiatives.
Government support is also scaling up. A £1 billion partnership with OpenAI aims to expand public compute capacity twenty-fold over five years, advancing AI security and applications across healthcare, education and defence. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ reflects this commitment to sovereign infrastructure.
UK AI startups raised £2.9 billion last year, with the sector’s economic contribution doubling to £11.8 billion. Employment has surged past 86,000. These figures are set to rise further through the UK-US Tech Prosperity Deal, which is fuelling investment across AI, semiconductors and data centres—including a $700 million infrastructure commitment by BlackRock.
Industry figures at the Schneider Electric event, including Matt Quirk of Supermicro and Matt Hawkins of CUDO Compute, stressed the need to convert momentum into measurable outcomes—driving innovation, developing talent and delivering sustainable infrastructure.
Demis Hassabis, founder of DeepMind, emphasised the UK’s unique strength in combining academic excellence with technical talent. He called for international standards on ethical AI, highlighting the UK’s role in shaping responsible innovation.
Schneider Electric’s focus on advanced power systems, modular data centres and liquid cooling technologies reflects the intersection of sustainability and scale that underpins AI readiness.
Together, these developments mark a forward-looking trajectory for the UK. Through sustained investment, collaboration and commitment to responsible growth, the country is well positioned to lead the next industrial era driven by artificial intelligence.
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