Nvidia has announced plans to invest in five UK artificial intelligence startups, alongside a $250m (£190m) commitment over five years to support research into agentic AI safety and security, as the chipmaker deepens its backing of the country's AI ecosystem.

The world's most valuable company said the investments will support innovation across healthcare, financial services, infrastructure, climate science and quantum computing.

The startups are Boltz, Foresight, Hiverge, Prima Mente and Riverlane. London-based Boltz develops AI models that help researchers predict molecular structures and design new medicines, while Foresight uses AI to help infrastructure owners manage risk and accelerate project delivery.

Cambridge-based Hiverge develops AI systems that automatically create and optimise algorithms, while London-based Prima Mente is building biological foundation models to study complex diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Riverlane, also based in Cambridge, develops quantum error-correction technology aimed at enabling large-scale quantum computing.

The latest commitments build on Nvidia's existing investments in UK AI companies including Basecamp Research, Synthesia and Wayve.

Separately, Nvidia said it is joining the Earthshot Prize as a founding partner of its Global Alliance, providing computing resources and technical expertise to innovators developing solutions to climate and sustainability challenges.

Financial services firms are among those developing AI applications. London Stock Exchange Group and Nvidia are bringing GPU-accelerated market analytics to financial institutions, while Revolut is scaling its PRAGMA foundation model, trained on 26 million anonymised user histories. Lloyds Banking Group has developed ATUM, a transaction foundation model, and Starling is building a banking model on UK sovereign cloud infrastructure. NatWest is working with Nvidia on voice AI, while payments company Modulr is deploying AI agents across payment operations.

Nvidia said more than 3,100 UK companies are part of its Inception programme for startups, highlighting the breadth of the country’s AI ecosystem as businesses and public bodies move from experimentation towards practical deployment.

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