Coreweavethe $19 billion cloud computing company that provides companies with AI compute resources, has formally opened its first two data centers in the UK – its first outside its US domestic market.

CoreWeave opened its European headquarters in London in Mayshortly after hitting a $19 billion valuation from the back of a $1.1. billion fundraise. At the same time, the company announced plans to open two data centers as part of a £1 billion ($1.25 billion) investment in the UK Today news in line with a separate announcement from the UK government which details a five-year investment plan to strengthen government-owned AI computing capacity, as well as geographic “AI Growth Zones” that include AI infrastructure from the private sector.

“This investment is a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s digital technology sector, and is exactly the kind we want to see as we grow the economy and use AI to drive efficiency,” Rachel ReevesUK Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a statement.

CoreWeave’s first UK data center went quietly live in Crawley in October, the company said, with a second hub available in December in London Docklands. Both locations are used Nvidia’s Hopper GPUs (graphical processing units), based on its upgrade H200 series of chips designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads.

From crypto to AI compute

Founded in 2017, CoreWeave began focusing on crypto mining, but with the rise in demand for AI compute – that is, the processing power and infrastructure needed to perform computational tasks such as running algorithms and execution of machine learning models – the company has repurposed its GPU infrastructure for such tasks.

CoreWeave is one of several cloud infrastructure startups looking to capitalize on the AI ​​hype wave, including domestic European players such as France’s FlexAI; DataCrunch, that is based in Finland; and Netherlands-based Nebius, which emerged from the ashes of the Russian internet giant Yandex.

CoreWeave says it will open 28 data centers by the end of 2024, including two new ones officially announced today. Separately, it also plans 10 new data centers by 2025, three of which will be in Europe, including three previously announced locations in Norway, Sweden, and Spain.