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OpenAI Elevates London to Its Biggest Research Hub Outside the U.S.

The company declined to share headcount or funding details for the buildout.

Overview

  • OpenAI says the London group will own key work on model safety, reliability and performance evaluation.
  • The office, now about 30 researchers, will grow substantially, with no headcount or investment figures disclosed.
  • London teams will continue contributing to products including Codex and GPT-5.2.
  • The expansion heightens competition for UK researchers with Google DeepMind’s roughly 2,000-person workforce, with OpenAI promising very competitive pay.
  • UK ministers and London’s mayor welcomed the move as bolstering national AI leadership, as the country works to expand data center and power capacity for advanced compute.