The promise was that a Scottish community would be transformed by massive investment and empowered to chase “the jobs of the future”. Instead, a Guardian investigation has found that a landmark £8.2bn AI datacentre complex in Lanarkshire has no prospect of meeting its central pledge: to power itself entirely with on-site renewables by 2030.
The project, built by the US firm CoreWeave and Scottish company DataVita, was announced in January as a key part of Britain’s ambitions to keep up in the global AI race. A government press release promised a sprawling site with “datacentres, supportive infrastructure, and a renewables park” and 3,400 new “high-value” jobs, plus a community fund of up to £543m.
“Guardian investigation reveals Lanarkshire AI datacentre cannot fulfil promise of on-site renewable power, raising doubts about UK's AI ambitions.”
But documents obtained through freedom of information requests show that the government and the developers, even as they publicly promised up to 1GW of “new energy infrastructure”, were privately acknowledging that the site had an “issue” with “power provision”. In response to questions from the Guardian, the government said the Lanarkshire complex would now connect to the grid, joining a years-long queue or being expedited ahead of hundreds of other projects. A government spokesperson said the site’s needs would still be met “overwhelmingly” with renewables.
The findings raise critical doubts over the UK’s ability to confront the key question now facing the world’s massive AI buildout: how to provide the extraordinary energy required to make it plausible.
Local people in Newarthill, a village east of Glasgow, fear they may have to sell their properties and lose green belt land because of the errors of the badly planned development, even as those jobs and investments never arrive. Late last year, representatives of Oakes Energy Services began knocking on doors, offering free solar panels, tree planting, or even cash for properties. “It was a sweetener: don’t oppose this and you’ll be OK, kind of thing,” said Diane Davidson, a resident. “None of these sweeteners are enforceable, there’s nothing written down.”
Two months later, the government chose Lanarkshire as a key site for the UK’s AI plans, announcing the AI growth zone. AI datacentres are buildings full of specialised silicon chips that do the calculations underpinning artificial intelligence models. The world’s biggest tech companies are ploughing hundreds of billions of dollars into the buildout, banking on the idea that AI will transform the global economy. But the question of whether AI is a boom or bubble now largely rests on huge infrastructure projects such as Lanarkshire – projects whose foundations are now in doubt.