A former coalfield in Cambois, North East England, will be home to an AI data centre at the previous site of Britishvolt, the startup that once hoped to transform UK car production by making batteries for electric vehicles before collapsing in January 2023.

According to the government, the new AI data centre is expected to create 1,600 jobs and generate inward investment worth multi-billion pounds, with plans developed by Blackstone, a real estate and asset management firm, and building work by Renaissance Land Limited.

Ground inspections have taken place, supported by the Coal Authority, to provide reassurances that where the works come into contact with coal, adequate controls are in place to ensure public safety.

“We have recently been working to make this process streamlined for developers, so development on the coalfield can happen efficiently and safely,” said Riwilo Masulani, principal permitting manager at the Coal Authority.

Legacy industrial sites, such as old coalfields and decommissioned power stations, are becoming more attractive to developers as potential sites for data centres, due to the availability of land and existing infrastructure which can be repurposed.

Industrial sites designed for high power usage often have power transmission infrastructure and a water source nearby, essential factors when deciding where to locate data centres.

In February this year, Microsoft announced plans to build a two-storey data centre on the site of a decommissioned power station in Eggborough, North Yorkshire, followed by news in June that that computing giant acquired a further 48 acres of land in a £106.6 million deal at Skelton Grange, in Leeds, with plans to develop a hyperscale data centre campus.

The AI boom is driving more demand for data centres, with real-estate agency Savills estimating that the number of data centres will need to more than double to meet expected power demands, with the National Grid reckoning that approximately under 6% of the UK’s total electricity consumption by 2030 will go towards hyperscale data centres.

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Subpar infrastructure was recently identified as a key challenge to AI development in the UK, with nine in ten of IT leaders predicting that their AI-generated data will soon outgrow their organisations current data centres.

Managing director of DataVita, Danny Quinn, wrote in a piece for DIGIT in April commenting on the lack of data centre capacity in the UK as a limiting factor for AI, and arguing that relocating data centre’s to post-industrial areas of Scotland could cost up to 90% less than London, and save up to 70% in operational costs.