Nik Storonsky Founder of Revolut is investing $500m to expand and create jobs in the US.
As the old saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. Hence why the UK government is hailing a fresh wave of US investment, with financial giants including Citi Group, Bank of America, and PayPal committing over £1.25 billion. We take a closer look at the deals and concerns about the long-term trade-offs for UK technological independence.
The government’s announcement paints a positive picture, highlighting thousands of new jobs in key cities including London, Edinburgh, Belfast, and Manchester, and a vote of confidence in Britain’s position as a global financial hub. A new Google Cloud partnership with the Ministry of Defence, for instance, promises to strengthen UK-US security ties with a £400 million investment.
Who’s hiring and on which side of the pond?
Bank of America is set to create up to 1,000 new jobs in Belfast, which could help the region’s growing role in global financial services.
- Citi Group is investing £1.1 billion across its UK operations, including a further commitment to growing its presence in Northern Ireland where the bank is now employing over 4,000 people
- BlackRock is opening their new Edinburgh office this week, which will see its 800-strong footprint nearly double, as part of its multi-billion dollar investment into the UK.
- In Manchester, S&P Global are investing over £4 million into its Manchester offices, which will support 200 permanent jobs to boost its nearly 3,000 UK workforce.
- Nvidia, OpenAI and Nscale will collectively be investing billions in data centres. Nscale revealed plans for a UK data centre in Loughton, Essex, in January. It is set to come online in 2026 and offer 50MW of capacity, though the site has a 90MW power allocation. In total, the company is planning to spend $2.5 billion ($3bn) in the UK.
But hiring is also going to take place across the pond. Starling Group is investing over $100 million over the coming years to unlock growth in its US operations.
Raman Bhatia, Starling Group CEO said:
The US State Visit highlights the importance of a strong UK-US economic relationship that helps create jobs, sustainable growth and pushes the bounds of innovation.
Revolut is set to invest over $500 million in the United States over the next 3-5 years to accelerate its expansion and support its ambition to scale as a bank for American consumers. This investment is expected to create hundreds of high-quality U.S. jobs and underscores the strength of the UK-US economic partnership.
Nik Storonsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut said:
The United States represents a key pillar of our global growth strategy. That’s why we are committing over $500 million to significantly accelerate our expansion in the U.S. This strategic long-term investment will create hundreds of high-skilled, well-paying American jobs.
Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said:
Strengthening ties with the US boosts our economy, creates jobs, and secures our role in global finance, delivering on our Plan for Change.
UK: Is it becoming an incubator economy?
However, analysts and campaigners have voiced scepticism, raising questions about whether these investments could turn the UK into an “incubator economy,” where promising British start-ups are either acquired by larger US firms or outcompeted before they can scale up.
Research from institutions like the Tony Blair Institute and the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee suggests without a clear and well-funded industrial strategy, the UK risks rapidly losing its ability to harness AI securely.
“Britain’s role in the emerging AI era is not yet determined, but the choices the government makes today will shape its ultimate trajectory,” according to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The Institute’s report admitted:
The UK cannot and should not try to compete in the resource-intensive race to train frontier-AI models. That track is currently dominated by the United States, China and the Gulf states, which are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the creation of vast, energy-hungry compute clusters.
“The UK lacks the fiscal headroom, land and energy resources to keep pace. Moreover, the country holds only about 3 per cent of the world’s computing power – around 1.8 gigawatts (GW)– and much of this is not even optimised for AI.
Data sovereignty: Has the UK lost it?
A concern is the UK’s reliance on US providers for critical infrastructure, particularly in the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence. The US CLOUD Act of 2018, which gives US law enforcement access to data held by US companies regardless of where it’s stored, adds another layer of anxiety regarding data sovereignty and national security, according to some analyses.
The emergence of the US CLOUD Act can reportedly be traced back to a legal battle between the US government and Microsoft in 2013. The government sought access to customer emails stored on Microsoft servers located in Ireland, as part of a drug trafficking investigation.
UK’s risk-averse culture: where has it got it?
While the UK government argues that these partnerships enhance Western leadership against rivals like China and provide much-needed capital, critics point out that the UK’s home-grown tech and fintech sectors have historically struggled with a lack of domestic investment and a “risk-averse” culture.
This creates a reliance on foreign capital that could lead to a brain drain of talent and intellectual property. The challenge for the UK, therefore, is to make sure the influx of US capital doesn’t come at the cost of its own innovation or control over its data and homegrown job creation.
After the red carpet for US President Trump’s visit this week is rolled up and stored away, let’s hope PM Keir Starmer understands the full implications of his negotiations.
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