Salesforce is investing heavily in an artificial intelligence centre in London that could create 500,000 AI-related jobs in the UK.
The US software company announced it will establish a more-than-40,000-square-foot facility in London’s Blue Fin Building.
This can accommodate over 300 people.
This centre will be used to foster collaboration among tech firms, AI experts, Salesforce partners, and customers.
It will provide AI training and upskilling programs.
The facility will officially open on June 18 with a free event aimed at training over 100 developers.
This AI center is planned to be the first of many globally.
It will support Salesforce’s UK and Ireland operations under Zahra Bahrololoumi, the firm’s UK and Ireland CEO.
The announcement was made at the Salesforce World Tour event at the London Excel venue.
It attracted more than 17,500 delegates and customers from companies including Aston Martin, McLaren, Just Eat Takeaway, and John Lewis.
Bahrololoumi said: “By locating Salesforce’s first flagship AI center in London, we are sending a clear message to customers and partners on AI: we are deeply committed to working closely together so that you can reap the rewards of this transformative technology, while ensuring it is a force for good.”
This AI center is part of Salesforce’s $4 billion investment commitment in the UK.
This was announced in 2023 and the investment will be made over five years.
In addition to the AI centre, Salesforce revealed it had invested over $200 million in UK startups through its venture capital arm, Salesforce Ventures.
“I think leaning into the UK is a smart decision for us”
This includes investments in companies like AutoGen AI, a procurement platform, and Eleven Labs, an AI-powered text-to-speech and voice generator.
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Patrick Stokes, Salesforce’s executive vice president of product and industries marketing, said the UK was a “really interesting place to do it, because some of the challenges here with AI and data are, in some cases a little bit more difficult to solve than they are in the US, there’s a little bit more regulation here.
“And consumer protection. And that somewhat counter intuitively, that’s a good thing for us as, as enterprise developers, because if we can solve those problems here, we’ve kind of solved them for everywhere.
“So typically, you want to kind of lean into the more challenging environments, from a from a product development standpoint, and learn as much as you can, it, as you know, is more challenging environments.
“We expect to see more of that type of regulation and consumer privacy protection.
“There are parts of the United States where we were where we see it emerging, we’d like to see more so.
“So I think leaning into the UK is a smart decision for us. And it ties in very nicely to the commitment that we made, probably right here in this room last year.”
