London Tech Week: AMD CEO Lisa Su Announces Over NT$84 Billion Investment in the UK

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Chair and CEO Lisa Su announced today at London Tech Week that the company will invest £2 billion (over NT$84 billion) in the UK over the next five years. The funds will be used for constructing high-performance computing infrastructure, research and development, and direct investment in UK startups.

AMD will collaborate with the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London in the fields of high-performance computing infrastructure and R&D, respectively. The partnership with Imperial College will focus on computer science, healthcare innovation, and climate research.

Su stated that the UK possesses the excellent talent, outstanding research capabilities, and sufficient ambition to lead the next era of artificial intelligence (AI). AMD is honored to deepen its collaboration with the UK government, academia, and industry, and to expand access and convenience to the computing infrastructure essential for developing sovereign AI, in order to accelerate new scientific and technological discoveries and advance long-term economic growth.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said that AMD's new investment highlights the confidence of major international companies in the UK as a global AI powerhouse.

AMD has recently announced several investment and collaboration projects in the UK, spanning areas such as AI infrastructure, supercomputing, fusion AI, and quantum computing.

The 13th London Tech Week opened today, with the main conference agenda at Olympia London concluding on the evening of the 10th, while over 100 various fringe events will continue until the 12th.

According to information provided by the conference, this year's London Tech Week features over 600 speakers and has attracted around 30,000 registered attendees, with high-level representatives from the science, technology, political, and investment communities of about 130 countries participating.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a speech today to open London Tech Week. Starmer announced that the UK government plans to invest £400 million to procure AI-specific chips.

This procurement plan is part of the AI Hardware Plan, also released by the UK government today. The AI Hardware Plan, totaling approximately £1.1 billion, will focus on the hardware level, support UK businesses, and strengthen the chips, semiconductor technology, computing power, and infrastructure necessary for the UK to develop sovereign AI.

On the opening morning of London Tech Week today, investment deals in the UK announced by the UK government and various international companies and investors amounted to billions of pounds, many of which are related to computing infrastructure.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan also announced that the Greater London Authority plans to contribute £12 million to help London's small and medium-sized enterprises intelligently apply AI to their various operational and business activities.

Furthermore, Prince William, the Prince of Wales, will attend London Tech Week for the first time on the 10th, convening business leaders to discuss how to leverage data and technology to prevent people from falling into homelessness. This is the first time London Tech Week has included such a topic on its official agenda.

According to estimates by the UK non-profit organization Tech Nation, the valuation of the UK tech industry is expected to reach £1.2 trillion this year. In the first half of this year alone, UK AI startups have successfully raised a total of over £8.2 billion in venture capital funding.

This means that nearly half of all new capital attracted by the entire European tech industry so far this year has flowed to tech startups within the UK.

Various estimates indicate that in terms of overall ecosystem size, valuation, output, and investment amount, the UK is the world's third-largest tech economy.