Nebius says struck deals with UK AI labs, welcomes non-compete changes
Tech.eu John Reynolds ● Covered by 5 sources
Nebius says it’s signing UK deals with early AI labs and wants to grow there. It also likes the UK’s plan to loosen non-compete clauses, which could speed up new startups.
Based on reporting by Tech.eu, John Reynolds — read the original for the full story.
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Nebius is leaning harder into the UK. The Amsterdam-based AI infrastructure company says it has struck deals with several early-stage UK AI labs as it pushes to expand its compute and infrastructure business there.
The company is one of those “neocloud” firms that builds data centres, fills them with GPUs, and then sells access to that hardware alongside software for running AI workloads. Earlier this year, Nebius said it would spend £1.7bn on a UK build-out, including new sites and an expansion of its London hub, which it describes as its main European R&D and go-to-market base.
That London push sits inside a broader footprint. Nebius says it has four data centre sites in the UK, plus facilities in Finland and France. It has also landed multi-billion-dollar contracts with Meta and Microsoft, and it has compute deals with Revolut and Prima Mente.
Gary Tierney, Nebius’ general manager for EMEA, said the company wants to keep expanding in the UK because of the talent density there. He declined to name the labs it is working with, saying they were either still in stealth or had only just emerged from it. The names surfacing from that same UK scene this year include Ineffable Intelligence, Inherent and Recursive Superintelligence.
Tierney also dismissed the backlash around UK data centres as a reason to hold back investment. And he welcomed the government’s plan to ease non-compete clauses, arguing that the startup market moves faster in the US because those clauses do not exist there. His point was blunt: if London becomes easier for talent to join and leave, more labs and more frontier builders will show up.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the boringly sensible take: if the UK wants more AI companies, it should stop making talent mobility a legal obstacle course. Non-competes are a gift to incumbents and a tax on new labs, which is exactly the opposite of what a startup scene needs. The UK keeps talking up frontier ambition; loosening those clauses is one of the few ways to make that sound less like conference-packet poetry.
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