Docusign is expanding its AI Centre of Excellence in Dublin, saying it wants to accelerate local AI innovation and fuel growth across the EMEA region. The €4.5 million (£3.9m) investment includes support from Ireland's Foreign Direct Investment Agency (IDA) - a non-commercial, semi-state body promoting foreign direct investment - and was welcomed by minister of enterprise, tourism, and employment, Peter Burke.
Rather, growth in FDI is coming from innovative industries in one advanced country building out capacity in another advanced country, most often the U.S. Instead of modest factories churning out routine consumer goods, foreign investment activity is increasingly comprised of expansive facilities costing more than $1 billion that make cutting-edge products, including semiconductors. The Trump administration seeks to build on those gains, demanding foreign investment as a component of trade deals
The 50-page study benchmarked the UK against international peers on 48 competitiveness indicators and found foreign investment in life sciences had slumped to £795 million in 2023-58 per cent below 2017 levels-pushing Britain down to seventh place in global rankings from a high of second only two years earlier. Pharmaceutical R&D has also slowed markedly, growing at just 1.9 per cent annually since 2020, against a global average of 6.6 per cent.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced that City Hall will host its first-ever London-Africa business summit next year, targeting a bilateral trade of £62 billion by 2030.
