£16.5BN Data Centre Campus Proposed in Dumfries and Galloway

Elizabeth Greenberg

05 October 2026, 12.08pm

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Dumfries and Galloway and for Scotland,” Graeme Anderson, CEO of CX Tech Limited, said.

New plans have been submitted to the Dumrfies and Galloway Council for a £16.5 billion data centre campus at the former nuclear power station at Chapelcross.

The plans were submitted by CX-Tech, an Annan-based firm, aiming to bring eight data centres to the new “CX Technology Campus,” as well as a dedicated training centre.

The planning application includes eight data centre buildings amounting to 162,000 square metres of floor space. Each data centre would have the capacity of about 120MW, equating to about 1GW total for the campus.

The data centre would therefore be one of the largest in the UK if it is approved. The application is importantly at its earliest stages, setting out only a planning framework, with information on designs, investment, and commercial planning to come at later phases.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Dumfries and Galloway and for Scotland,” Graeme Anderson, CEO of CX Tech Limited, said.

“Chapelcross has the potential to bring together our renewable energy strengths, digital infrastructure and high-value jobs in a way that few other sites can. We have an opportunity to seize that potential now, creating a new economic future for a site that has played an important role in Scotland’s energy story for generations.”

CX Tech says that the campus will be designed in like with the UK Green Building Council framework to be net zero.

The location of the site is next to a 132kV grid supply point, and the firm has found about 1GW of consented or planned renewable generation within 5km of Chapelcross, and about 2GW within 20km.

Environmentally, carbon from the construction would be managed via a construction environmental management plan, and backup generation would only be used in exceptional circumstances and be fossil free, the company said.

CX Tech’s data centre design will employ the use of closed-loop, non-evaporative air cooling in order to avoid large-scale water usage commonly employed by other large data centres. The data centres would use about the same amount of water as 32 houses total, the firm projects.