New data centres springing up around the UK
Why are data centres being built all over the country? And what is the cost?
Without servers, the internet as we know it wouldn’t exist.
They’re as important to websites and networks as internal device storage is to the smartphones and computers we rely on every day.
Every webpage, streaming media file, social media post and online shopping product database has to be stored on a server somewhere in the world, ready to be accessed.
These servers are packed tightly together in temperature controlled (and heavily guarded) warehouses known as data centres.
And data centres – as you may already have noticed if you live in London – are springing up at a remarkable rate, to store the world’s fast-growing collection of digital data.
They come in various guises, from single-company enterprise centres through to AI data hubs, powering search engines and AI platforms like Microsoft CoPilot.
They power everything to do with the surface and deep web, from websites and apps to the vast amounts of data required to operate these user-facing resources.
While data servers are rated in terms of storage capacity, the centres themselves are rated according to their power consumption, which is measured in watts.
And that provides the first clue about why the data centres presently springing up across the country are proving so controversial…
Centre of excellence?
In theory, digital data accessible over the internet could be stored anywhere in the world.
In reality, it makes sense to store it in places where usage is highest, or where there are strong levels of domestic demand.
Not only does this minimise the time it takes to distribute data from server to screen (known as latency), it also allows domestic companies to access data processing power in real time.
Although data centre clusters are forming in Cardiff and Manchester, many of the UK’s 450 hubs are sited in London, making it Europe’s largest data centre market.
However, they consume vast amounts of energy, with operational capacity reported at 1.3 gigawatts as of August 2025, and predicted to reach 4.61 GW by the end of the decade.
That’s literally taking power away from the people, as evidenced by a report last month from the snappily titled London Assembly Planning and Regeneration Committee.
They concluded that the voracious energy consumption of data centres was preventing housebuilding in London, with developers facing waits of up to 15 years to obtain a National Grid connection.
This is because one new data centre consumes as much energy on average as 100,000 homes. At present, they use 2.5 per cent of total UK energy, but this figure may quadruple by 2030.
With a hundred more data centres planned for the UK by 2030, the National Grid can’t presently supply them all, particularly alongside national electric vehicle and housebuilding targets.
Why do we need so many new centres?
The rapid growth of generative AI requires vast resources to be created, while other sources of demand include cloud services, the Internet of Things and the 5G rollout.
As consumers, we are fuelling this demand by using LLMs like ChatGPT, buying smart home devices and favouring live streaming over traditional TV and radio broadcasts.
However, new data centres come at a cost, from the aforementioned energy consumption through to land and construction materials.
Residents are increasingly angry about giant industrial units being built near their homes, with one recently approved site near a housing estate in Slough standing five storeys tall.
Yet data centres support over 40,000 jobs and raise two thirds of a billion pounds in tax revenue each year, so their impact on the domestic economy can’t be dismissed.
Little wonder that in late 2024, they were designated by the Government as Critical National Infrastructure, equivalent to water treatment plants or power stations.
They National Planning Policy Framework was specifically rewritten to ensure data centres can be built on greenbelt land, where other developments would automatically be rejected.
When a single proposed data centre in Havering will occupy 175 acres of land, it’s likely that our skylines will continue to rapidly evolve in response to changing internet usage.
