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

Comment
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.
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.”
Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.
Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.
The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Sunday.
TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice.
Some Indian government websites have allowed scammers to plant advertisements capable of redirecting visitors to online betting platforms. TechCrunch discovered around four dozen “gov.in” website links associated with Indian states,…
Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.  Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported…
The deck included some redacted numbers, but there was still enough data to get a good picture.
The company is describing the event as “a chance to demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates.”
Unlike ChatGPT, Claude did not become a new App Store hit.
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Look,…
Scarcely five months after its founding, hard tech startup Layup Parts has landed a $9 million round of financing led by Founders Fund to transform composites manufacturing. Lux Capital and Haystack…
AI startup Anthropic is changing its policies to allow minors to use its generative AI systems — in certain circumstances, at least.  Announced in a post on the company’s official…
Zeekr’s market hype is noteworthy and may indicate that investors see value in the high-quality, low-price offerings of Chinese automakers.
Venture capital has been hit hard by souring macroeconomic conditions over the past few years and it’s not yet clear how the market downturn affected VC fund performance. But recent…
The person who claims to have 49 million Dell customer records told TechCrunch that he brute-forced an online company portal and scraped customer data, including physical addresses, directly from Dell’s…
The social network has announced an updated version of its app that lets you offer feedback about its algorithmic feed so you can better customize it.
Microsoft will launch its own mobile game store in July, the company announced at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on Thursday. Xbox president Sarah Bond shared that the company plans to…
Smart ring maker Oura is launching two new features focused on heart health, the company announced on Friday. The first claims to help users get an idea of their cardiovascular…
Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…
Garena is quietly developing new India-themed games even though Free Fire, its biggest title, has still not made a comeback to the country.
The U.S.’ NHTSA has opened a fourth investigation into the Fisker Ocean SUV, spurred by multiple claims of “inadvertent Automatic Emergency Braking.”
CoreWeave has formally opened an office in London that will serve as its European headquarters and home to two new data centers.
The Series C funding, which brings its total raise to around $95 million, will go toward mass production of the startup’s inaugural products
A dust-up between Evolve Bank & Trust, Mercury and Synapse has led TabaPay to abandon its acquisition plans of troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse.
The problem is not the media, but the message.
The Twitter for Android client was “a demo app that Google had created and gave to us,” says Particle co-founder and ex-Twitter employee Sara Beykpour.
WhatsApp is updating its mobile apps for a fresh and more streamlined look, while also introducing a new “darker dark mode,” the company announced on Thursday. The messaging app says…
Plinky lets you solve the problem of saving and organizing links from anywhere with a focus on simplicity and customization.
The keynote kicks off at 10 a.m. PT on Tuesday and will offer glimpses into the latest versions of Android, Wear OS and Android TV.
For cancer patients, medicines administered in clinical trials can help save or extend lives. But despite thousands of trials in the United States each year, only 3% to 5% of…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Tap, tap.…
The newly announced “Public Content Policy” will now join Reddit’s existing privacy policy and content policy to guide how Reddit’s data is being accessed and used by commercial entities and…
Eva Ho plans to step away from her position as general partner at Fika Ventures, the Los Angeles-based seed firm she co-founded in 2016. Fika told LPs of Ho’s intention…
In a post on Werner Vogels’ personal blog, he details Distill, an open-source app he built to transcribe and summarize conference calls.
Facebook
Youtube
LinkedIn
X
Instagram
Mastodon
Powered by WordPress VIP

source