A Salesforce company logo hangs above the front door of the Salesforce Tower on January 22, 2024 in New York City.
Gary Hershorn | Getty Images
LONDON – Enterprise tech giant Foreclosure is opening an artificial intelligence center in London, making an optimistic bet on Britain as a global technology hub.
The US software giant said in a statement on Thursday that it will open a 40,000 square meter facility in London’s Blue Fin Building that can accommodate over 300 people.
It will be used to promote industry collaboration between technology companies, AI experts, Salesforce partners and customers, the company said, as well as enable AI training and education programs.
Salesforce expects the AI center to play a role in creating 500,000 AI-related jobs in the UK
The facility will officially open on June 18 with a free event to train more than 100 developers.
Salesforce said the center, which will be the first of many worldwide, will support its operations in the UK and Ireland. It is led by the company’s CEO for the UK and Ireland, Zahra Bahrololoumi.
The news was announced at the Salesforce World Tour event at London’s Excel venue on Thursday, which is expected to bring together more than 17,500 delegates and customers from companies including Aston Martin, McLaren, Just Eat Takeway and John Lewis.
“By locating Salesforce’s first flagship AI center in London, we are sending a clear message to customers and partners about AI: We are committed to working closely together to help you reap the benefits of this transformative technology, while ensuring that they are a…”Force for Good,” Salesforce’s Bahrololoumi said in a statement.
$4 billion investment in the UK
The AI center is part of a $4 billion investment in the UK that Salesforce has committed to over five years until 2023.
In addition to announcing the opening of its AI center, Salesforce revealed that it has invested more than $200 million in UK startups through its venture capital arm Salesforce Ventures. These include the procurement proposal writing platform AutoGen AI and Eleven Labs, an AI-powered text-to-speech and language generator.
Patrick Stokes, executive vice president of product and industrial marketing, said the UK is a “really interesting place.”
A really interesting place to do this because some of the challenges here with AI and data are sometimes a little more difficult to solve than in the US, there is a little more regulation here. And consumer protection. And that’s somewhat counterintuitive, that’s a good thing for us as enterprise developers, because if we can solve these problems here, we’ve sort of solved them everywhere. So typically from a product development perspective, you want to put yourself in more challenging environments and learn as much as you can, because as you know, they are more challenging environments. We expect there will be more regulations of this kind and to protect consumer privacy. There are parts of the United States where we have already seen it, and we would like to see it more often. That’s why I think it’s a wise decision for us to focus on the UK. And it fits very well with the commitment that we probably made here in this room last year.
For a billion-dollar investment in Great Britain.
The news comes amid concerns about whether Salesforce’s investments in AI are paying off. The company last week reported weaker-than-expected sales for its fiscal first quarter and gave guidance that fell short of investor expectations.
Salesforce reported revenue of $9.13 billion in the period, up 11% from a year ago but below analyst expectations of $9.17 billion. The company said it expected adjusted earnings of $2.34 to $2.36 per share for the current quarter, below analysts’ expectations of $2.40 per share.
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2024-06-06 13:14:40
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