OpenAI has signed a lease for an 88,500 square foot office space at Regent Quarter in King’s Cross, which is expected to open in 2027.
Phoebe Thacker, OpenAI’s London site lead, said on LinkedIn that the office will be the company’s largest research hub outside of the US.
The office will provide space for up to 544 staff, and house teams across research, engineering, customer support, policy, communications, and marketing and sales.
“The UK has an incredible depth of talent and a strong track record in AI,” Thacker said in a separate statement. “London is already a key hub for our research and teams, and this new office gives us the space to keep building here”.
She added that the company is seeing momentum in how businesses, developers and institutions across the UK are using AI, explaining that the investment reflects OpenAI’s long-term commitment to the UK.
OpenAI signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK government last year, announcing its intention to expand its existing London headquarters and consider investment in other UK AI infrastructure such as data centres.
The news comes just days after the AI company paused its development of Stargate UK, a proposed £31 billion data centre, citing the country’s high energy costs and regulatory landscape. Although the pause was a setback for the country’s efforts to become an AI hub, the timing of OpenAI’s office announcement suggests the company is not intent on cutting ties with the UK more broadly.
Stargate UK has faced issues beyond those with OpenAI’s pause in investment. In May, it was revealed that one of the companies set to build key data centres for the Stargate UK project, Nscale, had not bought land for another data centre it intended to be operational by the end of 2026, despite claiming to have done so in January 2025.
