A Salesforce corporate logo hangs over the front door of the Salesforce Tower on January 22, 2024, in New York City.
Gary Hershorn | Getty Images
LONDON – The enterprise technology giant Salesforce is opening an artificial intelligence center in London, making a big bet on the UK as a global tech hub.
The US software giant said in a statement on Thursday that it is opening a more than 40,000 square meter facility in London’s Blue Fin building, which can host over 300 people.
It will be used to encourage industry collaboration between technology firms, AI experts, Salesforce partners and customers, the company said, as well as facilitate AI training and improvement programs.
Salesforce said it expects the AI hub to play a role in creating 500,000 AI-related jobs in the UK.
The facility will officially open on June 18 with a free event to train more than 100 developers.
Salesforce said the hub, which is planned to be the first of many globally, will support its UK and Ireland business. It will be led by the firm’s UK and Ireland CEO, Zahra Bahrololoumi.
The news was announced at the Salesforce World Tour event at Excel’s London venue on Thursday, which is expected to gather more than 17,500 delegates and customers from companies including Aston Martin, McLaren, Just Eat Takeway and John Lewis.
“By locating Salesforce’s first, flagship AI hub in London, we’re sending a clear message to AI customers and partners: we’re deeply committed to working closely together so you can reap the rewards of of this transformative technology while ensuring it is a force for good,” said Salesforce’s Bahrololumi in a statement.
Investments 4 billion dollars in Great Britain
The AI center is part of a $4 billion investment in the UK that Salesforce has committed to making over five years to 2023.
In addition to announcing the opening of its AI center, Salesforce also revealed that it has invested more than $200 million in UK startups through its venture capital arm, Salesforce Ventures. These include the AutoGen AI procurement platform and Eleven Labs, an AI-powered text-to-speech and voice generator.
Patrick Stokes, executive vice president of product and industry marketing, said the UK was “a really interesting place to
a really interesting place to do it because some of the challenges here with AI and data are, in some cases, a little bit harder to solve than in the US, there’s a little bit more regulation here. And consumer protection. And that’s kind of counter-intuitively, that’s a good thing for us as enterprise developers, because if we can solve those problems here, we’ve solved them for everywhere. So typically, you want to lean into the more challenging environments, from a product development standpoint, and learn as much as you can, as you know, are more challenging environments. We expect to see more of that kind of regulation and protection of consumer privacy. There are parts of the United States where we were where we see it pop up, we’d like to see more. So I think tilting in the UK is a smart decision for us. And it ties in very nicely with the commitment that we made, maybe right here in this room last year.
For a billion investment in Great Britain.
The news comes amid concerns over whether Salesforce’s AI investments are paying off. The company last week reported weaker-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings and issued guidance that fell short of investor expectations.
Salesforce reported revenue of $9.13 billion for the period, up 11% from a year earlier, but below analysts’ expectations of $9.17 billion. The company said it expects adjusted earnings of $2.34 to $2.36 per share for the current quarter, lower than the $2.40 per share expected by analysts.
