Tech tycoon floats £10bn Oxford investment in boost for Reeves

Larry Ellison, and ally of Tony Blaire, co-founded Oracle and is currently the world’s second richest man - Toru Yamanaka/Getty

Tech billionaire Larry Ellison could invest up to £10bn into his Oxford campus over a decade, in a major boost to Britain’s life sciences industry and the Government.

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) has announced plans to recruit more scientists to study subjects including medical science, generative biology, artificial intelligence, robotics and food security.

If the scheme goes ahead as projected, the EIT said it “forecasts that over the longer-term it is due to spend more than £10bn in the next 10 years on talent and science programmes”. The site could ultimately employ as many as 7,000 people.

The plans come on top of earlier announcements of £1.9bn of investment. Mr Ellison, the founder of software company Oracle and an ally of Sir Tony Blair, announced plans to build a huge complex in Oxford several years ago, set to open in 2027.

While the £10bn pledge is far from a cast-iron promise, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, seized on the move by the world’s second-richest man as evidence of Britain’s growing attractiveness on the world stage.

The Chancellor said: “This investment is a major vote of confidence in Oxford as a global hub for science and innovation and shows what can be achieved when Government and world-class institutions like the Ellison Institute of Technology work together to deliver for our communities.”

The pledge was co-announced by the Government and forms part of a blizzard of recent announcements that Ms Reeves hopes will show the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that investment is on the up.EIT plans to invest £10bn in medical science, generative biology and artificial intelligence - Leon Neal/Getty

These include a pledge to cut the cost of business red tape by £6bn, a £2bn construction promise from Legal and General, and the establishment of the “Sterling 20” group of financial institutions which seeks to promote and coordinate investment.

The hope is that this will convince the official forecasters to upgrade their predictions for the nation’s economic growth at the time of next month’s Budget. Such a move would ease pressure on the Chancellor.

Ms Reeves said the EIT investment was the result of £120m of extra infrastructure spending in Oxford as she seeks to reverse “years of underinvestment”.

“We have massive ambitions for the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, that’s why we’re reopening the Cowley Branch railway 60 years after it closed, why we’re building more affordable housing and investing in business, and how we’ve been able to unlock £10bn in private investment,” she said.

The Chancellor added: “By choosing investment and renewal over chaos and decline, we’re boosting growth and building an economy that works for working people.”

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Cambridge will also receive more funds for housing and infrastructure.

The floated investment represents an unusual boost for the sciences in Britain at a time when many pharmaceutical companies are cancelling or scaling down plans.

American drug giant Merck last month abandoned a plan to spend £1bn expanding its British operations, blaming the Government for a “lack of investment in the life science industry”.

That decision was followed by AstraZeneca’s move to shelve a £200m project in Cambridge. Earlier this year, the leading pharma company also pulled a £450m investment in Liverpool.

Lord Vallance, the science minister, said the new investments by EIT could help turn the industry’s fortunes around.

“This region has all the ingredients to be the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley or the Boston Cluster: somewhere that turns world-class innovation into economic growth the whole nation benefits from,” he said.

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