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The US and UK are rushing to finalise deals on nuclear reactors, artificial intelligence data centres and whisky ahead of a state visit to London by Donald Trump overshadowed by the firing of British ambassador Lord Peter Mandelson.

California-based OpenAI is set to announce a UK arm to its $500bn Stargate data centre project, as part of a series of tech partnerships and trade agreements to coincide with the US president’s visit next week.

The UK-US tech partnership was described by Mandelson, sacked this week as ambassador to Washington over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, as his “personal pride and joy”. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to fire Mandelson risks angering Trump, who has been trying to dismiss his own connections to the late paedophile.

Starmer has been rocked by the fallout of the affair, with Labour MPs questioning his future as party leader. The prime minister’s allies said the state visit was a vital moment as he tries to regain the initiative.

For his part, Starmer hopes to present the US president’s three-day visit as an advertisement for Britain and a sign that his growth strategy is bearing fruit, as well as cementing a partnership to challenge China’s lead in critical technologies.

Energy co-operation, security and steel tariffs will also be on the agenda, but the economic centrepiece will be technology. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and chipmaker Nvidia’s Jensen Huang will join Trump in the US delegation.

They will launch the Stargate UK investment in the town of Blyth, Northumberland, according to people briefed on the plans. UK AI data centre company Nscale will also be involved in the project.

“The UK provides the energy, Nvidia the chips and OpenAI the intellectual property. The UK gets sovereign AI,” said one person involved in the project.

Altman stood alongside Trump in the White House in January to announce Stargate, which he said would include electricity infrastructure as well as data centres and pave the way to the next phase of AI.

The project, whose other founding partners are SoftBank, Oracle and Abu Dhabi state fund MGX, has since become broader and more nebulous. OpenAI has already struck deals to develop data centres in the UAE and Norway with local partners.

Rene Haas, chief executive of SoftBank-owned Arm, would join the delegation of tech executives in the UK for the state visit next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The UK tech champion’s chip designs are used in Nvidia’s AI products.

Nvidia’s AI chips have been in rising demand this year from not just traditional Big Tech customers but also national governments. The company said in August that “sovereign” deals were set to generate more than $20bn in revenue in 2025.

Huang met Starmer in June, when the prime minister pledged another £1bn in spending to expand Britain’s AI computing power. At the time, Huang warned that the UK lacked the digital infrastructure needed to give it an edge in the race to build its own local AI industry.

Nvidia and OpenAI declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The UK Department for Science, Innovation & Technology declined to comment.

A US official said Michael Kratsios, Trump’s science adviser, had been pushing to encourage tech partnerships with the UK, but many details were still being finalised.

Trump and Starmer will also announce expanding access to each other’s markets for nuclear technologies during the visit, which could help to open the door to the US market for British manufacturing jewel Rolls-Royce.

The agreements would partly seek to align and streamline regulation for small modular reactors, people briefed on the plans said. 

A Rolls-Royce-led consortium in June secured state backing to build three mini reactors in the UK. Although the company’s current focus is on securing a contract with the government by the end of this year and building reactors in the Czech Republic, chief executive Tufan Erginbilgiç has been increasingly vocal about his ambitions for the business.  

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Erginbilgic said in July that the company had “lots of projects to focus on right now” but “at some point we will come to the US”. “That opportunity is there because I really believe, given our skill set and given what we have done so far, we should be market leader in SMR.”

Rolls-Royce declined to comment. 

Deals were also set to be announced involving UK energy company Centrica and US nuclear group X-energy, the people said. Both companies declined to comment.

Mandelson and Scottish first minister John Swinney met Trump earlier this week to discuss a deal to exempt Scotch whisky, which is facing a 10 per cent tariff imposed on other UK exports.