UK government teams up with OpenAI to fuel AI-powered expansion
OpenAI and UK Government Announce Strategic Partnership to Boost AI Adoption
London, July 2025 — The UK Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, and OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, have announced a significant partnership aimed at expanding AI research collaborations, investing in AI infrastructure, and accelerating AI adoption across public services and the private sector in the UK.
The strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signifies a joint commitment to leverage AI for economic growth, regional revitalization, and the transformation of public services.
Key details of this partnership include:
- Expansion of OpenAI’s UK presence: OpenAI plans to significantly increase its London office, enhancing its research and engineering teams to contribute more to AI model development and support UK businesses, developers, and startups.
- AI infrastructure investment: The agreement includes exploring investment in UK AI infrastructure such as data centres. This involves potential support or investment in the government’s AI Growth Zones—areas designed to attract large AI data centers through streamlined planning and power connections.
- AI security research collaboration: OpenAI will deepen its cooperation with the UK AI Security Institute by sharing more technical knowledge about AI capabilities and security risks. This collaboration aims to increase government understanding of generative AI technologies, particularly regarding AI’s use in justice, defence, and security sectors.
- Transformation of public services: The partnership focuses on deploying AI to improve taxpayer-funded public services, including justice, defence, security, and education technology. The initiative aligns with the UK government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan and its broader goal of leveraging AI for economic growth and societal benefits.
- Economic growth and regional revitalization: The partnership intends to stimulate AI-driven economic growth and explore how AI can support job creation and regional development across the UK, especially in communities near AI Growth Zones.
- Non-binding nature: The MOU is a voluntary, nonbinding agreement that lays out a broad framework for collaboration rather than definitive commitments. The UK government and OpenAI use cautiously optimistic language such as "explore" multiple times, signaling an intention to collaborate without firm contractual obligations on specific investments.
In addition to these points, OpenAI's large language model, ChatGPT, is already being used in Whitehall's AI assistant, 'Humphrey', to speed up the civil service and automate tasks like sorting public responses to consultations.
OpenAI's commitment to the UK includes increasing the size of its London office and potentially investing in and supporting AI Growth Zones. The partnership aims to build on the UK's strengths in science, innovation, and talent, and will be guided by UK standards and guidelines.
The AI Growth Zones, backed by £2 billion in the Spending Review, are set to become hotbeds for AI infrastructure. This partnership is a significant step towards the UK's ambition to become a leading global AI hub by combining OpenAI’s expertise with public sector needs and infrastructure initiatives.
- The strategic partnership between the UK Government and OpenAI includes an investment in technology by potentially supporting AI Growth Zones, with a focus on real-estate development, particularly in the establishment of centers for AI infrastructure.
- As part of the cooperation, OpenAI plans to expand its presence in the finance and business sector, with the aim of using AI to optimize resource allocation and investments, especially in the areas of real-estate and technological advancements.
