Another major data centre has been given the green light in the UK, further cementing the country’s status as Europe’s AI front-runner. The government has approved a data centre on a huge green-belt site in Slough, Berkshire, despite claims it could derail the project to build Heathrow’s third runway.
The company had appealed after the council refused to rule on the project, which it said would sit in “one of the most fragile and vulnerable parts of the green belt around London”. Since coming to power, Labour has “repeatedly bypassed local authorities to support data centre developments”, said The Telegraph. Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, said that there was a “continuing and unprecedented demand” for such projects.
How many data centres are there in the UK?
The UK is at the forefront of Europe’s data centre roll-out; it hosts 523 out of the continent’s 2,269 data centres as of last year, said Euronews. It is “striking” that China (home to 449 centres), “despite its strength as a technology and innovation power”, ranks behind the UK, as well as Germany (529 centres).
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However, all three are dwarfed by the US, which last year boasted 5,427 data centres. The only other countries with more than 300 centres are Canada, France and Australia.
What’s the latest?
A multibillion-pound AI data centre in Wales was jeopardised by “ministerial dithering”, said The Telegraph. British data centre company Era4 said it had secured permission and financing for the project at the former Liberty Steel works in Newport, but that the “project had faced months of delays” because Kanishka Narayan, the AI minister, “failed to push through permission for it to access power from a nearby battery plant”.
Era4 said the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology had given “no indication of when a decision would be made or that the project would be approved”. Tom Humphreys, Era4’s chief executive, said the company was looking at sites in Europe as an alternative.
Other tech companies have also “complained of a struggle to build AI infrastructure in Britain”, said the paper. OpenAI recently announced it was pausing work on a data centre in the north of England due to high energy costs.
What’s planned for the future?
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth over the next five years, said the BBC last year, when there were already an estimated 477. Work on the biggest, a £10 billion data centre near Newcastle for US wealth management firm Blackstone Group, is due to begin in 2031. It will involve “10 giant buildings” covering more than half a million square metres – “the size of several large shopping centres”.
The majority will be built in London and neighbouring counties, despite “concerns about the huge amount of energy and water” they’ll consume, as well as the “potential knock-on effect” on domestic energy bills.
How much environmental impact do they have?
Officials recently admitted that Britain’s data centre boom could “draw 40% more electricity than thought a few months ago”, said The Times. More than 100 data centres are seeking grid connections for 50 gigawatts of electricity capacity – “more than the whole of Britain’s peak demand on a typical day”. MPs are calling for a “national conversation on the environmental impacts”.
“The previous projections were already unfathomable,” said Oliver Hayes, head of policy and campaigns at environmental charity Global Action Plan. Adding 40% on top is absurd.”
There are also concerns about the burning of fossil fuels to meet power demand, potentially jeopardising climate goals. There has been a “marked shift over the past year in willingness of UK developers – and authorities – to consider using fossil fuels to power the UK’s AI ambitions”, said The Guardian. More than 100 new UK data centres plan to burn gas, said “some potentially doing so permanently”.
