United Kingdom AI data centre development

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Proposed AI data centres in the United Kingdom, including local opposition, planning disputes, environmental concerns, and debates over infrastructure and technological sovereignty.

AI firms seek UK datacentre compact before opposition spreads

The Sovereign AI Leadership taskforce, which includes Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco, has told the Labour government that Britain has roughly 12 months to build a compact that earns public consent before opposition to datacentres follows…

2026-10-22 · 6 MIN READ

Osborne, now at OpenAI, calls UK data center opposition 'nimbys'

George Osborne, the former UK chancellor who now leads OpenAI's relationships with governments, used a Sunday festival appearance in Somerset to dismiss protests against UK AI data centers as "nimbys" and to argue that Britain risks losing…

2026-09-22 · 4 MIN READ

North Devon residents mobilize against Xlinks' 1.5GW AI datacentre plan

Xlinks faces mounting local opposition over plans to build a 1.5GW AI datacentre and 1.8GW battery energy storage system within a UNESCO biosphere reserve near Great Torrington in north Devon, England, The Guardian reported Sunday.
Freedom of information requests by the Devon Datacentre and BESS action group revealed Torridge district council held closed discussions with Xlinks from March 2025 and issued a letter of "in-principle support" in April 2025 — more than a year before the proposal was first announced to the public.
The 344-hectare site would include five buildings between 50 and 130 feet tall, two structures each measuring 335 metres by 267 metres, and 1,720 containerised battery units that campaigners say would dwarf Britain's largest operational battery facility, the 100MW Bramley site in Hampshire.
US activist Elizabeth Humphreys of Not in My Valley addressed a public meeting in Great Torrington, where she linked the Devon campaign to a permanent datacentre ban she helped secure in Coachella, California.
A petition launched by Devon county councillor Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin calling for a national pause on datacentre projects outside AI growth zones has drawn 30,000 signatures, according to organisers.
Xlinks said its £13.8 billion project would bring between 600 and 1,200 jobs to the region and that an environmental impact assessment is under way.

2026-09-27 · 4 MIN READ