The UK could see 100 more major datacentres coming online over the next five years, according to an analysis of planning documents cited by the BBC.
The massive buildout would boost the number of major datacentres in the UK by 20% but will also fuel ongoing concerns about the amount of energy and water the current fleet is already consuming.
The government is desperate to get more datacentre capacity built out. Datacentres are central to plans for (sovereign) AI in the long term, while construction brings a short term jobs boost.
The sector has already been designated as critical national infrastructure. This reflects their central role in the economy and society in general. But it also eases the planning burden both for the facilities themselves and related infrastructure.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has reportedly called for further planning changes to fast track datacentres build outs.
The figures, compiled by construction research firm Barbour ABI, show that most sites will be in the South East of England. But the BBC cites one in Blythe that will cover the same amount of land as “several large shopping centres”.
Meanwhile, UK authorities called on consumers this week to delete old emails and photos from online services to ease the resource burden on datacentres as many parts of the country struggled with drought.
Thirst for electricity
Part of datacentres’ water consumption is down to cooling, but the majority is down to water use during electricity generation.
However, deleting cat pictures will be literally a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of resources tomorrows’ AI focused datacentres are going to need. Datacentres are expected to be a major driver of a 4% annual increase in global electricity consumption over the next two years.
The result is that datacentre operators are increasingly looking to nuclear technology to power their sites.
This week US-based datacentre giant Equinix announced the purchase of 20 Radiant Kaleidos microreactors, and a letter of intent to for up to 250Mwe to power its datacentres in the Netherlands with ULC-Energy, fuelled by Rolls Royce small modular reactors.
And it announced a “pre-order agreement” for 500Mwe with Stellaria, which “offers the very first molten salt Breed & Burn reactor in the world”. Equinix also announced plans to expand its use of solid-oxide fuel cells.
