CoreWeave, a $19B AI compute provider, opens European HQ in London with plans for 2 UK data centers | TechCrunch

CoreWeave isn’t hanging around. Hot on the heels of a mega funding round valuing the GPU cloud company at a reported $19 billion, the New Jersey startup has opened an office in London that will serve as its European headquarters.

Additionally, Coreweave said that it will open two data centers in the U.K. this year as part of a £1 billion ($1.25 billion) investment, its first outside the U.S.

Founded in 2017, CoreWeave is one of a number of AI-focused cloud computing companies to benefit from the recent surge in AI, including the generative AI hype prompted by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. CoreWeave offers access to cloud-based AI “compute,” which is the infrastructure and resources required to carry out computational tasks such as processing data and running machine learning models.

Developers building AI applications need access to GPUs (graphics processing units), which are complex to set up and manage, and are expensive to run, as they are typically rented for a set period of time. CoreWeave makes this processing power available on-demand and at scale, serving up a range of Nvidia GPUs to cater to developers’ various use cases.

A number of players have emerged in this nascent space — and they’re getting funded, too. Lambda raised a chunky $320 million a few months ago, and last month, French startup FlexAI emerged from stealth with $30 million but with a focus on deploying AI models across multiple architectures, not just Nvidia.

CoreWeave is among the frontrunners in the GPU cloud space. Last week it said it had raised $1.1 billion in a round that nearly tripled its valuation from the previously reported $7 billion figure in December. Such is the AI gold rush, and Nvidia itself has seen its market capitalization quadruple over the past 12 months to more than $2 trillion.

U.K. and AI

The U.K. is considered among the top countries for R&D investment in AI, behind the U.S. and China. Google’s DeepMind is based in London, and Microsoft recently made a $3.15 billion commitment to build its AI infrastructure in the country over the next few years as well. The Redmond, Washington-based giant’s newly formed consumer AI division also gained its first international hub in London, and it’s fronted by former Inflection and DeepMind scientist, Jordan Hoffmann.

The AI talent grab will only intensify in the coming years throughout the U.K. For CoreWeave, a company spokesperson said that its new HQ will be based just off Brick Lane in East London, and it will be looking to hire around 30 staff across software engineering, support engineering, operations, finance, and go-to-market roles.

Much like cloud computing in general, setting up localized “compute” infrastructure should also mean lower latency and higher-performant applications for companies in the region. Given CoreWeave’s plans to open two U.K. data centers by the end of this year, it’s safe to say the company was probably already working on these plans before today’s announcement.

It also means by the end of 2024, CoreWeave will have 28 data centers operating globally, though the company wouldn’t say how many it has today. It did have 14 at the end of 2023, all of which were in the U.S.

“We are seeing unprecedented demand for AI infrastructure and London is an important AI hub that we are investing in,” CoreWeave’s CEO and co-founder, Mike Intrator, said in a statement. “Expanding our physical footprint in the U.K. is an important milestone in the next phase of CoreWeave’s growth.”