The new investment places AI at the centre of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, unlocking billions in private investment and enabling new opportunities for businesses, researchers, and local communities across the country.

A new AI Growth Zone in South Wales, developed with Vantage Data Centers and Microsoft, will receive £10 billion in private investment and create more than 5,000 jobs over the next decade. Spanning multiple sites along the M4 corridor, including the former Ford Bridgend Engine Plant, the zone will serve as a major hub for AI infrastructure, research, and advanced digital industries.

Each AI Growth Zone will benefit from £5 million in government support to help local businesses adopt AI technologies and develop specialised skills in their workforce.

Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director for Zoho UK, said: "The UK’s bold commitment to harnessing artificial intelligence for national renewal is both timely and visionary. This investment represents a crucial step toward ensuring the benefits of AI and data innovation are distributed fairly across the country.

"For businesses, the real opportunity lies not only in adopting AI tools, but in developing the skills, governance, and readiness to apply them responsibly at scale. Keeping data privacy at the centre of any AI strategy, creates the right foundation to make informed decision and adopt AI responsibly.

"AI literacy and strong data protection standards will be essential to ensure initiatives are credible and built for long term impact. Structured implementation, starting with clearly defined pilot programmes underpinned by automation, governance, and security, will help businesses move beyond experimentation and ensure AI drives sustainable competitive advantage. With the right guidance and accountability in place, AI can support transformative growth across the UK.”

To keep UK firms at the frontier of global AI capability, the government is launching a new programme to expand free and low-cost compute access. Up to £250 million will be deployed to help British researchers and startups train models and pursue scientific breakthroughs.

Alongside this, a new advance market commitment, worth up to £100 million, will allow the government to act as an early customer for UK AI hardware startups, supporting domestic chip innovation and ensuring British-designed hardware plays a role in future data centre deployments.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.