Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has hailed a proposed £3.75bn investment in a colossal new data centre in Hertfordshire.
A planning application for what would amount to one of Europe’s largest data centre campuses, at 85 acres and taking up 2m square feet of floor space, has been submitted via a new company DC01UK.
Construction will create some 500 jobs immediately and is expected to be completed by 2029, with 200 permanent roles then introduced to the local area. It is estimated DC01UK will add approximately £1.1bn in GVA to the UK economy per year, while indirectly supporting the creation of 13,700 new jobs across a number of other sectors.
The giant facility will be located east of South Mimms Services, adjacent to the A1 and M25, in the borough of Hertsmere.
DC01UK claims the project’s scale is currently “unrivalled” in the UK, with the site able to harness power of 400MVA from the National Grid and sitting close to the UK’s national and international fibre optic routes.
“Data centres play an essential role in British society, housing some of our most important data from vital NHS records to sensitive financial information,” secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Peter Kyle, said in a statement.
“This huge £3.75bn proposed investment is a vote of confidence in our plans to support the sector to thrive, ensuring everyone across society can feel the economic benefits of its growth.”
Demand for data centres has boomed across the world amid growth in the use of AI, cloud computing, storage and data-heavy services like video streaming.
Amazon’s cloud division on Tuesday unveiled plans to invest £8bn in the building and maintenance of such facilities in the UK over the next five years. Google is already investing $1bn (£790m) in a separate 33 acre data centre in Hertfordshire, to help it develop new AI models.
But some projects have faced barriers in the form of local planning decisions and push back from politicians. Proposals for a major 50 hectare data centre site on a quarry by the M25 were nixed in November amid fears it would ruin the view from the motorway’s bridges.
The government on Thursday announced it would henceforth classify data centres as “critical” national infrastructure, alongside the likes of major energy and water projects.
“We must make the sector resilient to the challenges of today – from heatwaves to cyber attacks – which is why only today we have announced we will class data centres as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’, on par with energy supply systems,” Kyle said.
A spokesperson for DC01UK said: “The ambition for this project is to build the next generation of national digital infrastructure to power the needs of tomorrow.”
It added the scheme would “put Hertfordshire at the forefront of one of the most technologically exciting projects in Europe and lead the world in setting the gold-standard for the next generation of high-tech infrastructure.”
Councillor Jeremy Newmark, Leader of Hertsmere Borough Council, said: “This is incredibly exciting news. It shows that Hertsmere is an extremely desirable location for business and is a natural base for the cutting-edge technology and critical infrastructure which will serve Britain in the coming years and for many future generations.”