Drax Power Plant Site to Host UK's Largest AI Datacentre in £20bn Deal
Drax's owner has partnered with Brookfield and Radiant to build a 1-gigawatt AI datacentre in North Yorkshire, targeting a 2028 launch.
Britain's most polluting power plant is set for a dramatic transformation after its FTSE 250 owner announced a £20 billion agreement to construct what could become the United Kingdom's largest artificial intelligence datacentre on the existing Drax site in North Yorkshire.
The deal brings together three major players: Drax's publicly listed parent company, global infrastructure investor Brookfield, and AI infrastructure platform Radiant. Together, the partners plan to develop a facility with an eventual capacity exceeding one gigawatt — a scale that would place it among the most significant datacentre projects in Europe.
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Drax described the initiative as the site's "next chapter," signaling a strategic pivot away from energy generation toward digital infrastructure. The North Yorkshire location is well-positioned for such a project given its existing grid connections and land availability, factors that typically represent major bottlenecks for large-scale datacentre development.
The facility could begin operations as early as 2028, though the full one-gigawatt capacity would presumably be reached in stages over subsequent years. The announcement reflects a broader trend of repurposing legacy energy sites to meet surging demand for AI computing infrastructure, which requires vast quantities of reliable, high-capacity power.
The £20 billion commitment underscores the scale of investment flowing into AI-related infrastructure across the UK, as technology companies and their financial backers race to secure the computing resources necessary to train and deploy increasingly complex AI systems. Continue reading at Business | The Guardian.
