Nvidia to invest in UK firms including Wayve, Revolut

[LONDON] Nvidia plans to invest £2 billion (S$3.5 billion) to support the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, comprising funding to startups and partnerships with venture capital (VC) firms.

Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang said at an event in London that he plans to back autonomous vehicle technology developers Wayve and Oxa; fintech company Revolut and AI companies PolyAI, Synthesia, Latent Labs and Basecamp Research.

The chipmaker will also work with venture capital firms Accel, Air Street Capital, Balderton Capital, Hoxton Ventures and Phoenix Court, according to an Nvidia statement on Thursday (Oct 2).

Huang is among several high-profile Silicon Valley executives who accompanied US President Donald Trump on a state visit to the UK this week. His remarks on Thursday capped a series of financial commitments by Nvidia to build out AI in the UK, though his ebullient announcements appeared to catch some partners off-guard.

Wayve had said on Thursday that Nvidia was planning to invest US$500 million in the company to accelerate the development and deployment of its AI model. The company later updated its statement to say Nvidia had signed a letter of intent to explore the US$500 million investment into its next funding round.

Wayve chief executive officer Alex Kendall confirmed the company was currently raising funding, but declined to provide further details.

Another beneficiary was UK fintech Revolut.

“I’m going to invest in your next round,” Huang said onstage on Thursday, without specifying an amount. Nvidia is participating in the fintech’s ongoing primary fundraising round that is set to value the company at US$75 billion, a source familiar with the matter said.

Huang also announced a £500 million equity stake in British AI data centre company Nscale during a press conference on Wednesday.

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The overall £2 billion figure includes this stake and will be drawn from Nvidia’s balance sheet, a spokesperson for the chipmaker said.

Investments will be “domiciled in the US and activated in the UK”, providing researchers and startups access to funding and computing power, the company said.

Accel, Balderton Capital, Hoxton and Phoenix Court are some of London’s most active, well-known funds, and have invested in British AI startups such as Synthesia. Air Street Capital is run by a solo investor, Nathan Benaich, a longtime backer of AI startups. The UK VC partners will help the chipmaker identify AI startups to support, but won’t necessarily co-invest, Nvidia’s spokesperson said.

“The United Kingdom is in a Goldilocks moment, where world-class universities, bold startups, leading researchers and cutting-edge supercomputing converge,” Huang said. “There has never been a better time to invest in the UK.”

Nvidia’s financing is one of a slew of AI announcements from US technology companies this week, coinciding with Trump’s visit. Microsoft and OpenAI have also announced UK investments and partnerships totalling tens of billions of US dollars.

Huang and his Silicon Valley peers attended a banquet with King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Wednesday after announcing Nvidia’s investment in Nscale. The little-known startup, which spun out of a crypto miner 14 months ago, also partnered with Nvidia and OpenAI for the launch of Stargate UK, an offshoot of a larger US push to increase the capacity to run AI systems.

The UK is home to Google’s AI unit DeepMind and high-profile AI startups. While it is the biggest European market for startups by volume and size of deals, it has yet to produce a national AI champion akin to OpenAI in the US, or France’s Mistral.

The announcements bolster an effort by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to strengthen ties with the US and boost technology growth. Starmer described Nvidia’s investment as a “major vote of confidence in the UK both today and long into the future”.

In January, the prime minister laid out a plan to “turbocharge AI” with investment in data centres and chips. He also called for the creation of “AI growth zones”, where data centres can get fast-tracked planning approval and access to the electricity grid. BLOOMBERG