New investments revealed by the government include £6.3bn in UK data centres, as well as at UK university Imperial College London.

Investment plans span partnerships across the infrastructure and tech sectors, including over a billion pounds in new investments announced today by DP World and Associated British Ports (ABP). 

The investments follow action taken by the new government to reform planning, focus on AI and data centre expansion, and set a clear commitment to net zero by almost doubling the funding for renewable energy projects. 

Four major tech firms based in the US have today announced £6.3bn in UK data centres, investment that is critical to enhancing the UK’s AI capacity, fuelling Britain’s economic growth and spurring on AI development. Data centres store the information and data needed to power AI, and store the information generated by AI to keep the systems running.

ABP, the UK’s largest port operator, has committed over £200m to a joint investment with ferry company Stena Line in a new freight ferry terminal at the Port of Immingham, significantly boosting the capacity and resilience of UK trade with Europe. It is expected to create around 700 jobs during construction and around 200 permanent jobs once operational. 

Imperial College London has announced a £150m investment to secure a new R&D campus to add to its deep tech ecosystem in West London. The new campus will expand scale-up capacity in the WestTech Corridor, supporting the UK’s innovation sector and driving investment, economic growth and job creation, the government announcement said. 

Business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds said that the investment total secured at the summit “marks a major vote of confidence in the UK and our stability dividend across industry and innovation.

“We’re determined to deliver economic growth in every part of the UK and these investments, together with our forthcoming Industrial Strategy, will give global businesses the certainty they need as we lead the charge for the innovation and jobs of the future.”

Here is the government’s list of all the investments announced in the run-up to and during yesterday’s International Investment Summit. 

• Iberdrola doubling their investment in the UK, through Scottish Power, from £12bn to £24bn over the next four years. This includes £4bn for the East Anglia 2 wind farm off the Suffolk coast. Iberdrola executive chairman Ignacio Galan CBE confirmed on Friday that the UK has become its largest investment destination. 
• Blackstone confirmed a £10bn investment in Blyth, Northumberland to create one of the largest AI data centres in Europe, creating 4,000 jobs, including 1,200 roles dedicated to the construction of the site. 
• Amazon Web Services announced an £8bn investment last month, which is estimated to support around 14,000 jobs per year at local businesses, including those across the company’s data centre supply chain such as construction, facility, maintenance, engineering and telecommunications.
• CCUS investors (including Eni, BP and Equinor) reached a commercial agreement with the government that will unlock £8bn of private investment to launch carbon capture clusters in the heartlands of the North-West and North-East of England, directly creating 4,000 jobs and supporting 50,000 jobs in the long term. 
• Orsted and Greenvolt confirmed that the government’s recent expanded offshore wind auction means their projects will unlock £8bn (Orsted) and £2.5bn (Greenvolt) of investment respectively in their planned offshore wind farms. Orsted says its commitment will see thousands of jobs for local people, while Greenvolt says it will create up to 2,800 construction jobs.  
• CyrusOne, a leading global data centre developer headquartered in the US, announced plans to expand its investment into the UK to £2.5bn over the coming years. Subject to planning permission, the two data centres should be operational by Q4 2028, projected to create over 1,000 jobs both directly and within its immediate design and construction value chain.   
• Octopus Energy has committed to a £2bn investment in renewable energy generation, including four new solar farms in Bristol, Essex, East Riding of Yorkshire and Wiltshire that will power up to 80,000 homes as well as breaking ground on a new 12 MW battery in Cheshire, which Octopus says will store enough power for nearly 10,000 homes every day.
• SeAH Wind has made an additional £225m investment into wind technology manufacturing in Teesside, thanks to new backing from UK Export Finance, and expects to create 750 direct jobs by 2027. This brings their total investment into the site at Teesworks up to £900m and will help them make their ongoing factory build – one of the biggest facilities of its kind worldwide – even bigger. 
• CloudHQ is developing its new state-of-the-art £1.9bn data centre campus in Didcot. The hyper-scale data centre is currently in development and will help meet the UK’s growing demand for AI and machine learning. It will create 1,500 jobs during construction, and 100 permanent jobs once fully operational.  
• Macquarie supporting investment of £1.3bn into new green infrastructure including its Island Green Power solar farm in Stow, as a result of planning consents having been granted by the government, and its Roadchef portfolio company installing electric car ultra-fast charging points across its sites along the UK motorway network. 
• ServiceNow also confirmed its commitment to the UK market, with plans to invest £1.15bn into its UK business over the next five years. The investment will not only support the future development of AI in the UK, expanding its data centres with Nvidia GPUs for local processing data, but also support new office space as the company significantly grows into employee base beyond its current headcount of 1,000 employees.  
• Manchester Airports Group is investing more than £1.1bn in London Stansted Airport to expand its existing terminal by around a third, help secure new air routes to key business and leisure destinations, boost local supply chains and create 5,000 jobs. This includes around £600m to extend the terminal and £500m to deliver a suite of improvements to the existing terminal building and wider airport estate. 
• Eren Holdings confirmed a £1bn investment in the redevelopment of Shotton Mill in Deeside, North Wales, which is set to become the UK’s largest recycled paper manufacturing campus. This is expected to safeguard 147 jobs and create a further 220 when the site is fully commissioned. 
• Network Rail and London & Continental Railways are creating a new property company which will attract additional private and public sector investment with the potential to deliver brownfield regeneration schemes across the rail estate with a value exceeding £1bn.
• CoreWeave is building on its £1bn investment announced in May and the opening of its European headquarters in London by investing a further £750m-plus in the UK to support the demand for critical AI infrastructure. The investment in the UK is CoreWeave’s second largest investment in a country following the US.  
• DP World is investing up to £1bn in London Gateway container port operation. This new investment will fund two additional berths and a second rail terminal. Once built, the berths will add vital transport capacity and increase the resilience of UK supply chains, enabling businesses to access domestic and international markets and supporting the government’s growth and decarbonisation missions. 
• Holtec, a major US advanced nuclear engineering company, has confirmed a significant investment of £325m in a new factory in South Yorkshire, which will supply materials for civil and defence nuclear industries. It says this will create up to 490 direct and 280 indirect jobs annually during the construction phase and 1,200 direct engineering jobs created over 20 years. 
• BW Group is proceeding with a £500m investment, which includes new battery energy storage projects in Hampshire and Birmingham. 
• Eli Lilly and Co is collaborating with government through a memorandum of understanding, which will see the pharmaceutical giant intending to commit £279m to tackle significant health challenges – including obesity. Lilly also plans to launch the first ‘Lilly Gateway Labs’ innovation accelerator in Europe to support early-stage life sciences businesses to develop transformative medicines and technologies. 
• Associated British Ports (ABP), the UK’s largest port operator, has announced a £200m-plus joint investment with Stena Line in a new freight ferry terminal at the Port of Immingham, boosting the capacity and resilience of UK trade with Europe. This is expected to create around 700 jobs during construction and 200 permanent jobs once operational. 
• Imperial College London investing £150m to build The WestTech Corridor – a new innovation ecosystem in West London that will act as an engine for investment, inclusive economic growth and job creation at a local, regional and national level. 
• Haleon has received planning permission to develop a new £130m Global Oral Health Innovation Centre in Weybridge, Surrey. This state-of-the-art facility will primarily support Haleon’s global oral health business by developing new products that advance consumers’ better everyday health.

The International Investment Summit was sponsored by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, M&G plc, Octopus Energy and TSL.

• Comment below on this story. Or let us know what you think by emailing us at [email protected] or tweet us to tell us your thoughts or share this story with a friend.