UK risks losing AI leadership without data strategy, government warned

The UK needs a strategy to meet growing demand for data centres or risk losing its advantage in the race to develop artificial intelligence (AI), one of the sector’s largest players has told Sky News.

Data centres – warehouses housing processors that power cloud computing – are central to the digital economy. They provide the power, connections and security required for the vast amount of processing power on which everything from personal device browsing to AI learning relies.

The UK is currently Europe’s largest data hub, with more than 500 data centres, the majority in the South East.

Slough in west London is the industry’s historic base, largely because of its proximity to both transatlantic connectors and the City of London, whose financial services and banks were initially the biggest customers for computation power.

Last month the government classified data centres as ‘critical national infrastructure’, putting them on a par with power stations and railways but the industry says a broader strategy is required as it moves to meet the growing demand driven by power-hungry AI chips.

High land prices, competition for grid connections and the resistance of local residents have put a premium on further expansion in the southeast, leading some companies to look beyond the industry’s traditional base.

Kao Data, which has an expanding campus in Harlow, Essex, is among those looking to beyond the South East, and broke ground this week on a £350m development at Stockport in Greater Manchester.

Spencer Lamb, Kao’s chief commercial officer, said the UK industry is at a turning point.

“We are under pressure to be able to provide capacity and create data centre buildings to fuel the demand from AI, that’s the challenge. Whether we as a country provide the environment for it is the big question mark,” he said.

“If we want to be part of the global AI opportunity we need to deploy these resources in locations that are suitable, sustainable and have the opportunity for growth. We didn’t really have a plan 10 years ago when cloud computing started, and by accident we’ve ended up where we are today which is in effect consuming all the power into the west of London.

“Now is the time to come up with a UK-wide data centre strategy and start deploying these facilities in other parts of the country, distributing them fairly.”

Kao’s expansion in Manchester exploits an existing industrial site – it will replace a concrete factory – and the availability of a grid connection, fundamental in a notoriously power-hungry industry in which a facility’s size is measured in megawatts not square feet. A 100MW data centre consumes the same amount of electricity as 100,000 homes, a town roughly the size of Ipswich.

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Mr Lamb said it is a model the government should heed. “A realistic opportunity would be to allocate two or three locations across the UK which have access to power as data centre planning zones, where the local authorities understand what a data centre is, are welcoming and we can develop these buildings simply and swiftly and remove a lot of the bureaucracy that exists.”

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The Stockport site also has the backing of the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, who sees data as part of the jigsaw of infrastructure required to boost economic development in the North West.

“This is now critical national infrastructure as designated by the new government, and it makes sense that all of that capacity is not just clustered in one part of the country. We now need to see the emergence of a large-scale data centre industry in the north of England,” Mr Lamb said.

The challenge of further expansion in the South East is evident on the outskirts of the expanding village of Abbotts Langley in Hertfordshire, where a patch of green belt has become a frontline in the debate over data centres and the new government’s commitment to growth.

The 31-hectare plot, once grazed by cows that produced milk for the nearby Ovaltine factory, has been bought by property developer Greystoke Land and earmarked for a data centre.

The local planning authority, Three Rivers Council, rejected it because of the loss of green belt, but on her first day in office, Angela Rayner, the housing minister, “called in” the application, beginning a process expected to end with her over-ruling the local authority.

Labour promised to back development in government but that does not make it popular. As well as concerns over the environmental impact of a data centre, residents believe the development will remove the only buffer between the village and the motorway.

Stephen Giles-Medhurst, Liberal Democrat leader of Three Rivers Council, 76% of which is made up of green belt, told Sky News communities need something in return.

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“I’m not a total nimby, I can see which way the wind is blowing, but we will make the best case possible to say no to this development because it is an inappropriate site, which causes very high harm to the green belt.

“Ironically we do have some brownfield sites that landowners won’t release, and we can’t compulsory purchase, let’s do something about that and bring them back into public ownership.

“But if at the end of the day we’re overruled then we will be demanding the infrastructure that’s for Abbots Langley and Three Rivers.”

A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Our reforms to the planning system will make it easier to build the key infrastructure this country needs – such as data centres – securing our economic future and giving businesses the confidence to invest.

“Development on the green belt will only be allowed where there is a real need and will not come at the expense of the environment.”