OpenAI to establish London as biggest research hub outside the US

ChatGPT developer OpenAI is to make London its largest research hub outside of its San Francisco headquarters, it announced today, signifying a vote of confidence in the city.

The US AI frontier lab, which currently employs around 30 researchers in London, has pledged to further increase investment in its London hub, but did not specify figures.

OpenAI, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, said that its London team was contributing to key parts of OpenAI’s work, including on its AI-powered coding assistant Codex and its GPT-5.2 LLM (large language model).

OpenAI cited the UK’s “world-class talent” across machine learning and the sciences, and “strong culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration”, as well as its leading universities and scientific institutions as reasons for investing in London.

The move comes as OpenAI looks to battle for talent against the likes of Google’s DeepMind, which employs around 2,000 people in the UK.

OpenAI said: “In committing to establishing London as its next research hub, researchers in London will own key components of OpenAI’s frontier model development, strengthening the data, evaluation, alignment and reliability work that helps ensure advanced AI systems are safe, robust and useful in the real world.”

Science and Tech Secretary Liz Kendall said: “OpenAI naming London as its largest global research hub outside the US is a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s world-leading position at the cutting edge of AI research. It also reaffirms the UK’s global leadership as the place to pursue AI innovation that is both safe and transformative.”

Mark Chen, OpenAI chief research officer, said: “We are excited to establish London as a major research hub for OpenAI, building on the leading work our London team is already doing to support our latest breakthroughs. The UK brings together world-class talent and leading scientific institutions and universities, making it an ideal place to deliver the important research which will ensure our AI is safe, useful and benefits everyone.”