The world’s largest money manager will use President Trump’s state visit to the UK next week to unveil a £500m plan to invest in UK data centres, one of the fastest-growing areas of global infrastructure spending.
Sky News has learnt that BlackRock plans to announce a joint venture with Digital Gravity Partners, a digital infrastructure investment manager, that will focus on acquiring and modernising existing data centres to improve their capacity.
The project will be among dozens hailed by the government as evidence of the strength of the economic partnership between Britain and the US, as President Trump arrives in the UK against the politically tumultuous backdrop of Lord Mandelson’s sacking as the US ambassador.
BlackRock, which has more than $12.5 trillion in assets under management, has a significant presence in Britain, and will next week open a new Edinburgh office employing about 1,300 people.
Earlier this week, Sky News revealed that Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and chief executive, would be part of the business delegation accompanying President Trump on the state visit.
Other bosses in attendance will include Jensen Huang of Nvidia, the world’s most valuable public company, and Sam Altman of ChatGPT architect OpenAI.
Bloomberg News reported on Friday that the two companies would launch a multibillion-pound investment in the UK next week that will form part of the vast $500bn Stargate data centre project.
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The vast quantities being spent on artificial intelligence-related data centre infrastructure around the world represents one of the most important trends in the global economy, with the attendant strains on power resources also being throw into sharp focus.
The government hopes to announce early next week aggregate figures for investment and job creation that will rival the £63bn it claimed to have secured as a result of last October’s International Investment Summit, according to insiders.
Critically, at a difficult time for an economy which official data shows is flat lining, the string of major corporate announcements will be hailed by Sir Keir Starmer’s administration as evidence that Britain remains a top global destination for foreign investment.
The Office for Investment, which was recently given a beefed-up role in Whitehall, has been involved in coordinating many of the deals to be announced next week, which will encompass energy, financial services, nuclear power and technology, according to insiders.
Corporate and Whitehall sources said that BlackRock’s £500m data centre deal would reflect the efforts of the prime minister, his business adviser Varun Chandra and chancellor Rachel Reeves to strengthen the government’s relationship with the asset management behemoth during the last year.
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Dozens of bosses will attend a state banquet at Windsor Castle hosted by King Charles III during next week’s trip.
President Trump’s visit will, however, come amid tensions over his tariff regime, with continuing uncertainty about the impact on British manufacturing sectors, including steel.
There are also continuing tensions between the UK government and major drugmakers over pricing, with the US administration pressuring pharmaceutical companies to slash the price of prescription medicines in the US.
BlackRock declined to comment.
