A multibillion-pound drive to “mainline AI into the veins” of the British economy is riddled with “phantom investments” and shaky accounting, a Guardian investigation has found.

Since 2024, successive Conservative and Labour governments have proclaimed massive deals to build new datacentres, create thousands of jobs and construct a supercomputer.

The investments – led by two firms linked to AI giant Nvidia - have been touted as a cornerstone of the government’s promise to use tech to turbocharge the economy.

On Monday, former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg and former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg were announced as new board members at one of the firms, NScale. Nscale also said it had raised a $2bn funding round, sending its valuation soaring to $14.6bn.

But a Guardian investigation has shown the money isn’t necessarily real, the datacentres may not be new, the jobs are unaccounted for – and the supercomputer site 12 miles north of London is still a scaffolding yard.

When asked about a series of claimed investments, the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology declined to answer detailed questions but said it “rejected these assertions”.

A statement added: “Our AI sector has attracted more than £100bn in private investment since the government took office, with our AI sector growing 23 times faster than the wider economy last year. That is delivering the jobs and opportunities hardworking people deserve.”

But it also acknowledged limitations to its oversight.

In one case, it said that there was no contract in place for a £1.9bn ($2.5bn) investment despite a press release declaring that one had been signed. In another, it said that it was “not playing an active role in auditing these commitments”.

The findings raise questions about a series of massive AI investments announced globally in the past year, many in high-level press releases from governments and tech companies.

With over £500bn promised in 2025, countries worldwide are seeking to conjure economic growth from AI’s transformative potential.

Last year, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that if AI were “fully embraced”, it could bring £47bn to the economy each year – and promised to “mainline AI into the veins of the UK”.

But the UK example will raise fears that, without oversight, the value of these investments may simply enrich companies and investors that are largely headquartered in the US.

“These are phantom investments,” said Cecilia Rikap, a professor of economics at University College London, who said similar things were happening around the world.

“Big tech companies artificially inflate datacentres’ job creation and economic impact to please governments like the British one, which are desperate to claim they are making the economy grow.”

‘The rules are very flexible’

The UK government’s AI plans centre on two companies backed by the $4tn tech giant Nvidia: London-based Nscale and the US company CoreWeave.

In 2024, Rishi Sunak’s government hailed one of the first AI investments in Britain, a £1bn commitment from CoreWeave to help “cement the UK’s position as a world leader in AI.”

CoreWeave’s press release said it would invest £1bn in the UK, and quoted the then technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, as saying this would bring “two new datacentres to our shores.”

CoreWeave said the investment would “create job opportunities” and herald further expansion. Six months later, it announced that the two datacentres were operational: one in London Docklands, and one in Crawley near Gatwick.

Planning records indicate that CoreWeave built no new datacentres at either location during that time period. Neither did the two partners mentioned in its press release.

In fact, while CoreWeave’s – and the government’s – communications imply that physical buildings were built by suggesting the investment would bring “two new data centres to our shores”, this was misleading.

The Guardian understands that CoreWeave became a customer of two existing datacentres, one built in 2002 and one built in 2015, both of which lease space to a host of other companies, including Google and Fujitsu. CoreWeave rented space in these datacentres, and deployed Nvidia chips that it had paid for.

Effectively, its investment amounts to the relocation into the UK of computer chips manufactured in Taiwan by a US company.

There is no indication in public-facing materials that CoreWeave has made other investments, beyond renting an office in a building in Southwark, London, which it has called its “European headquarters.”

Rikap said it was “very common” for datacentre developers to frame the purchase of equipment, or the acquisition of other companies, as investment. “The rules are very flexible and help them to make these big claims and investments that a government like Starmer’s, which is desperate for good news, can use for their favour.”

In a response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that the figures it had announced for CoreWeave’s investment did not come from them. A statement said they were produced by CoreWeave.

It did not say whether this investment amounted to capital or equipment.

CoreWeave said that bringing new datacentre capacity online by deploying chips within an existing site was an “industry-standard” approach. The deployment of these chips, the associated lease and power costs, the opening of its office and personnel costs represented the whole of the £1bn investment, it said.

“Our investments are designed to expand compute capacity, and enable AI adoption and innovation across enterprises, research institutions, the public sector and startups. We are delivering advanced, purpose-built AI infrastructure to support the development of AI at scale,” the company said. It refused to say how many jobs had been created.

Nscale’s flagship project was announced in January 2025, when the government said that the company would build a supercomputer site on the outskirts of Loughton in east London, a project dubbed “the largest UK sovereign AI datacentre.” This was reported to be part of a $2.5bn investment the company was making into the UK.

That press release said that Nscale had “signed a contract” to complete this datacentre by 2026.

Nscale’s own press release from the time said that it “confirmed” its investment in the UK by buying the site in Loughton, and the supercomputer was to be “live” by Q4 2026.

But the proposed site, in an industrial park on the outskirts of Loughton, was still being used as a scaffolding yard by a London-based company when the Guardian visited in February.

Nscale submitted a planning application to build there at the end of February, after the Guardian had begun to make inquiries. Land records appear to indicate that Nscale has not yet been registered as owner of the site. An Nscale spokesperson said that the company either owned the land or the sale was pending, but could not give a date on which the transaction had occurred.

In response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that the figure Nscale had given for its investment in the UK, $2.5bn, was from Nscale itself.

Asked about the terms of the contract that Nscale had signed to build the supercomputer by the end of this year, the government did not reply directly. Instead, it said that Nscale’s entire $2.5bn investment was “not a formal contract, rather an intention to commit capital”, and “may well include equipment and capital funding”.

Nscale’s accounts for 2025 are overdue, but do not yet show any commitment to investments in the UK.

An Nscale spokesperson said: “As a UK-headquarted company, we remain committed to the UK investment we announced – with the Loughton project in support of Microsoft progressing as we envisaged. We’re investing not only in the site itself but also in offsite power infrastructure, local contractors and local suppliers.”

‘The claims are pie-in-the-sky’

Nscale and CoreWeave are committed to further projects.

Nscale, along with Microsoft and the ChatGPT developer, OpenAI, are to establish Stargate UK, a “critical” project to help develop the UK’s own AI facilities on sites across the country.

In response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that this project was also a part of Nscale’s $2.5bn investment. It did not give a breakdown of the total amount, and said it did not have a mechanism in place to review it.

“Government will continue to work closely with Nscale in securing this investment into UK, however, it is not playing an active role in auditing these commitments,” said a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

CoreWeave, meanwhile, is to back an AI growth zone in Lanarkshire, which the government has said will be completed within four years and bring the company’s investment into UK infrastructure to £2.5bn. That development is a “key pillar” of the government’s industrial strategy. The government says the project will create 3,400 jobs in the construction of the facility; CoreWeave’s partner, DataVita, has promised more than 1GW of onsite renewable energy, the energy equivalent of the output of a nuclear power station.

The Lanarkshire site currently hosts a datacentre with 24MW of electricity – less than 3% of the promised renewable supply – operated by the Scottish firm DataVita, which is partnering with CoreWeave in developing the site. One planning application, to extend this to 40MW, has been approved; other applications, including for a larger site, cannot be filed until April, according to the planning portal of the local council.

“This hyperscale datacentre would have the energy demand of half a million homes, an eighth of the entire Scottish electricity demand,” said Dr Kat Jones, director of the Scottish countryside charity APRS, who has been researching the growth of hyperscale and AI datacentres across Scotland.

She said that the claimed plans for 1GW of on-site renewable energy “are total pie-in-the-sky. Where is this going to come from?”

In the press release announcing the site, the government said that CoreWeave’s commitment to the site was part of a package of investments the company “has made to AI projects in the UK.”

In response to a query from the Guardian, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology would not say if it had audited this commitment, or how – or if any of the investment had been received. Questions on the form of the investment, it said, were “ultimately” up to CoreWeave.

“The details of the Lanarkshire commitment are subject to DataVita and CoreWeave,” it said.

Asked about the Lanarkshire site, CoreWeave said that questions about its power usage should be directed to DataVita, its partner, and that the project “remains on schedule, with the first phase expected to come online later this year.”

DataVita did not respond to a request for comment on this piece.

Asked about the 3,400 jobs, CoreWeave said: “Any job projections that have been shared in relation to these UK datacentre efforts have originated from the UK Government and DataVita, not CoreWeave.”

A government spokesperson said: “Datacentres are vital to delivering the benefits of AI, from boosting productivity to improving public services. We have a clear plan to deliver the infrastructure the UK needs and get it connected, and make no apologies for working with leading global firms to invest in and build datacentres here.”

Additional reporting: Dan Milmo and Libby Brooks