US electric vehicle maker Rivian is planning to open an office in London as it looks to tap into the UK’s pool of AI engineering talent.
While the US has steamed ahead of Europe in terms of producing AI companies, the UK is considered one of the global leading hubs for talent in the sector.
A number of AI tech giants have opened offices in the region in recent times and startups are increasingly scrambling to compete to secure top tech workers.
Founded in 2009, Rivian builds EVs and is developing autonomous driving technology software. Backed by Amazon, Fidelity Investments and Coatue Management, the company IPO’d in 2021 and is currently valued at over $14bn.
“We’re incredibly excited about opening our AI hub in London and attracting leading talent,” said James Philbin, Rivian’s vice president, Autonomy & AI.
“The work the team will do in the UK will accelerate our plans and ensure our vehicles remain one of the most technologically advanced and appealing on the road.”
US tech poaching European AI talent
Rivian is the latest US tech giant to open or expand operations in Europe, as they look to take advantage of AI talent at considerably lower cost than in home markets.
In June, Anthropic told Sifted that it was “aggressively” expanding into Europe as it looked to poach top AI workers.
“It’s no secret that there’s world-class research talent in Europe, and it’s been the case for years, right?” said Guillaume Princen, head of EMEA, pointing to AI labs in London at DeepMind and Paris at Meta and echoing Nvidia chief Jensen Huang’s comments earlier this week.
Elsewhere, OpenAI announced plans for a Munich office earlier this year — its fifth in the region since 2023, Google is opening a new 4k-person office in London later this year and Microsoft is also planning a new AI hub in the UK capital.
Rivian will also be competing with a roster of well-funded startups.
AI avatar platform Synthesia and AI voice company Elevenlabs both raised $180m earlier this year, and there are reports that Mistral — the only European company developing frontier LLMs — is in talks to raise €1bn. Autonomous vehicles company Wayve raised a $1bn round in 2024, a record AI round in the region.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/ev-giant-rivian-to-open-london-hub/
