The Hertfordshire authority has approved a £3.75bn facility which will deliver thousands of jobs.
DC01UK will occupy an 85-acre site close to the M25. Built to support Britain’s rapidly developing artificial intelligence infrastructure, a spokesperson for Hartsmere Borough Council described the news as ‘momentous’.
500 skilled on-site construction jobs, 200 permanent skilled positions, and 10,900 third party, aligned and indirect roles will be created through the project. Economically, the data centre could deliver £21.4million in business rates to the local government, and £1.1billion in overall annual gross value.
‘Hertsmere has cleared the way to becoming the home of a data centre which will be integral to serving Britain with cutting-edge technology. It’ll be a piece of critical national infrastructure needed for many generations to come,’ said Cllr Jeremy Newmark.
Last month, we reported on emerging concerns linked to the UK Government’s ‘AI revolution’. Labour recently unveiled plans to overhaul vast swatches of public services through artificial intelligence and machine learning with the aim to shave billions off budgets and free up thousands of staff hours currently being spent on unnecessary manual administrative tasks.
However, South East England has been identified as a focus region for investment in infrastructure to drive this mass update, and environmental campaigners have pointed out the huge volumes of water needed for data centres to operate risks putting a significant burden on an area that is already experiencing droughts and water shortages.
‘One estimate said AI-related infrastructure may soon consume six times more water than Denmark, a country of 6 million people. What will this mean for residents in water-stressed communities,’ said Adrian Ramsay MP, Green Party co-leader.
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Operations Centre platform delivering on Edinburgh’s smart city strategy
Labour AI promises trigger water crisis fears in South East England
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