The opening day of London Tech Week delivered a concentrated round of investment commitments, with AMD putting £2 billion into UK compute infrastructure and Nebius adding £1.7 billion in AI capacity — alongside a government announcement of £400 million for sovereign AI compute.
AMD's £2 billion commitment, announced on 8 June at the London Tech Week 2026 opening, covers high-performance compute infrastructure in partnership with Cambridge University, R&D with Imperial College, and direct investment into UK startups. Nebius's £1.7 billion will fund three new NVIDIA infrastructure deployments and expand its commercial and AI R&D hub in London, scaling to 65MW of capacity by 2027.
The Prime Minister announced a national AI compute strategy backed by £400 million to purchase specialist AI compute. The Mayor of London separately unveiled a £12 million AI support package for SMEs — £4 million annually over three years, administered by London & Partners, providing readiness assessments, mentoring and tailored guidance for small businesses adopting AI.
Tech Nation's report, The Next Wave of UK AI, released alongside the event, valued the UK technology sector at £1.2 trillion in 2026. UK AI startups raised more than £8.2bn in venture capital in the first half of the year — roughly half of all European technology investment in the same period, according to the Prime Minister's remarks. Omdia forecasts IT spending across Europe will grow 8.2% in 2026, reaching $1.3 trillion, the fastest pace since 2021.
The event runs until 10 June at Olympia London, with fringe events continuing across the city to 12 June. Speakers on the opening day included the CEOs of Microsoft UK and AWS UK, as well as the Head of OpenAI for Countries and multiple UK policymakers. More than 600 speakers and 30,000 attendees are expected across the three days, with participants from 130 countries.
London Tech Week is in its 13th year. The 2026 edition is framed by organisers around AI's role in industry transformation, tech sovereignty and deep tech development — themes that are also driving the government's G7 AI adoption ambitions.
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