OpenAI Announces Major Expansion of London Office
OpenAI has announced plans to transform its London office into its largest research center outside the United States.
The company, which opened a UK office in 2023, says it will expand its London-based research team, recruiting talent emerging from leading UK universities. He did not say how many researchers he would hire.
“The UK brings together world-class talent and leading scientific institutions and universities, making it an ideal place to conduct important research that will ensure our AI is safe, useful and benefits everyone,” Mark Chen, director of research at OpenAI, said in a statement.
These projects place OpenAI in direct competition for top researchers with Google DeepMind, the AI lab led by British researcher Demis Hassabis, headquartered in London. DeepMind has long-standing partnerships with the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, where it sponsors chairs, funds research and works alongside researchers.
At Oxford University’s latest careers fair, the room was full of undergraduates looking for technical roles and recruiters recruiting for AI-related roles. “Supply and demand are increasing on both sides, even within a year,” says Jonathan Black, director of the careers service at the University of Oxford. “Having something like this is a really positive sign.”
OpenAI’s London team will continue to contribute to products such as Codex and GPT-5.2, the company says, but will now “own” certain aspects of model development related to security, reliability and performance evaluation.
In a statement, UK Science and Technology Secretary Liz Kendall described the announcement as “a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s global leadership position at the forefront of AI research.”
The announcement coincides with a push by the UK to scale the country’s data center and power infrastructure to meet the voracious demand for computing from AI companies, including OpenAI.
