The Scottish government is considering a sweeping moratorium on building new datacentres, putting a key plank of the UK's artificial intelligence strategy at risk. The Scottish National Party's national council passed a motion on 24 June to freeze all new datacentre projects in Scotland, and the motion has been sent to the Scottish government for consideration.
Moratorium could halt major projects
The moratorium could apply to all datacentre projects that have not yet received planning permission, though its exact implementation is up to the Scottish government. Lesley Backhouse, a local councillor from one of the constituencies that put forward the motion, said Scotland's current datacentre plans amounted to “overdevelopment” and were “intrusive and not keeping with the local environment”.
The move follows a Guardian report on Monday revealing that a developer and the UK government misrepresented the technical feasibility of a massive datacentre hub in Lanarkshire, which was to be an “AI growth zone” – a key element of the government's strategy to build national AI infrastructure in rural areas. Community fears that their land would be subsumed and promised jobs would never materialise were dismissed.
Wider upheaval in UK AI strategy
The SNP's resolution comes amid signs of wider upheaval in UK AI strategy, as Andy Burnham prepares to replace Keir Starmer in Downing Street and reportedly considers reviewing several critical planks of Starmer's technology policy. The Guardian previously reported that an “AI growth zone” in North Tyneside was more publicity stunt than viable project, despite supposed backing from OpenAI. Several other big UK AI projects have been found to be “phantom investments” after the government failed to audit investment numbers or jobs claims.
“I don't think anyone is arguing that we should not have any datacentres in the UK or Scotland,” said Graham Simpson, a member of the Scottish parliament representing North Lanarkshire. “But there needs to be a proper piece of work at the government level to decide how many the country needs and what is our capacity for them, in terms of our resources.”
Energy capacity concerns
The SNP resolution suggests that the number of massive datacentres planned in Scotland could overwhelm its renewables capacity. It states there are 24 “hyperscale” datacentre projects in various stages of planning in Scotland, which combined would use more than one-and-a-half times the power Scotland uses at peak demand. “It is extreme overdevelopment. I'm very supportive of the local community and their endeavours to prevent this from happening,” said Backhouse.
British officials have pushed Scotland as a prime location for datacentres due to its plentiful renewable energy. A moratorium could halt projects such as the Lanarkshire AI growth zone, striking at the heart of the UK's wider AI strategy.
Criticism of UK AI investment strategy
Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons science and technology select committee, criticised the UK's broader AI investment strategy, saying without a proper plan for achieving sovereignty it has been “very opportunistic”. She characterised the process as “X or Y or Z says they're going to invest [and so] we'll take that as part of an investment plan and then the investments aren't realised”.
She also said the Starmer government's plan for AI growth zones had been affected by “a lack of clarity that they were about ensuring that the benefits of AI were felt in the place”. “They weren't matched, as I suppose Andy Burnham might put it, by a comprehensive place-based strategy to make sure that happened,” she said.
Sovereignty concerns
Onwurah's committee called on the next government to protect UK sovereignty in AI, stating: “It is essential to ensure that the UK cannot be cut off from key technologies at the whim of a foreign government.” The warning comes after the White House last month blocked foreign access to the most powerful tools made by Anthropic. The cross-party committee said the temporary export ban “should be a powerful reminder that the UK may not be able to count on even its allies for access to vital technology.”
“I hope the incoming administration will learn from the mistakes of its predecessors and move quickly to create a clear plan for how it will work internationally on science and technology,” Onwurah said.
The call for greater sovereignty came as the government released more details of the nine companies supported so far under the £500m Sovereign AI Fund, launched in April to back homegrown AI founders. According to a freedom of information response, four of the nine companies awarded cash investment in offers to use the government's supercomputers in Bristol and Cambridge are ultimately controlled by American firms.
