Scotland’s expanding AI data centre industry has received a £300 million investment boost, a day after ministers announced tighter scrutiny of major new developments.
Scottish company DataVita has secured a debt facility of around £300 million to expand its existing data centre in North Lanarkshire and build a second facility as part of Scotland’s first AI Growth Zone.
The deal is backed by a £202 million guarantee from the UK Government-owned National Wealth Fund and financing from ING, ABN AMRO, Santander, the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services.
The investment will fund an expansion of DataVita’s existing DV1 centre and construction of a new facility known as DV3.
Both have already been contracted to AI cloud computing company CoreWeave on 15-year leases.
Around 700 jobs are expected to be supported directly by the latest development, while the wider Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone is forecast to support more than 3,400 jobs over the coming years and attract more than £8 billion of private investment.
Dell Technologies is also to establish its Scottish base at the AI Innovation Park within the growth zone.
The announcement on Tuesday, 18 August, underlines the scale and speed of Scotland’s emerging data centre industry.
However, it comes amid growing concern about the potential impact of a wave of large developments on Scotland’s electricity network, environment and communities.
On Monday, the Scottish Government announced a new planning direction requiring councils to notify ministers within seven days of validating applications for data centres with a capacity of more than 50MW.
The measure will give ministers greater oversight of the largest proposals and the opportunity to consider whether they should intervene in individual planning decisions.
Ministers have already called in an appeal over a proposed data centre at Edinburgh’s South Gyle, meaning the final decision will be taken by the Scottish Government.
Developers behind proposed hyperscale facilities at Auchtertool in Fife and Wester Hermiston in Edinburgh have also been told that environmental impact assessments will be required.
The Scottish Government has stopped short of introducing a moratorium on new hyperscale data centres, which has been demanded by environmental campaigners and the Scottish Greens.
There are currently around two dozen major data centre proposals at various stages in Scotland.
Campaigners claim that, if all were developed, their combined electricity requirements could reach around 6,000MW – equivalent to approximately one-and-a-half times Scotland’s current peak electricity demand.
The industry argues Scotland is particularly well placed to accommodate the growth of data centres because of its renewable energy resources, relatively cool climate and potential to make use of electricity generated by wind farms.
The UK Government designated Lanarkshire as Scotland’s first AI Growth Zone in January, with DataVita as its delivery partner.
Economy Secretary Stephen Flynn described the latest financing as a milestone for the growth zone and welcomed the economic investment and employment it is expected to bring to the region.