Draft:AI Growth Zones

AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) are designated sites in the United Kingdom where the government provides streamlined planning consent, priority grid connections, and coordinated infrastructure support to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence-ready data centres. The programme was established as part of the UK government's AI Opportunities Action Plan, published in January 2025.

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Instructions · What links here · AI Growth Zones (talk: + · bio) · (log) · Copyvios report · reFill · Citation Bot · (Search: Google, Wikipedia) · Submitted 15 days ago by Articlejunkie12 (talk: D · +) · Last edited 15 days ago by EatingCarBatteries

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Last edited by EatingCarBatteries (talk | contribs) 15 days ago. (Update)

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Background

In January 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer outlined an ambition to make the United Kingdom a global leader in artificial intelligence. The government published its AI Opportunities Action Plan on 13 January 2025, which set out a commitment to expand the UK's sovereign compute capacity by at least twenty-fold by 2030.^[1]

AI Growth Zones were identified in the Action Plan as a central mechanism for achieving this goal. The government defined AIGZs as designated areas well-suited to housing AI-enabled data centres and supporting infrastructure, with access to power supplies of at least 500MW and expedited planning support.^[2]

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a supporting policy paper, Delivering AI Growth Zones, in November 2025, setting out a package of measures to support zone delivery.^[3]

Policy framework

Planning

Data centres within AI Growth Zones benefit from accelerated planning processes. The government proposed classifying data centres as nationally significant infrastructure, with a target of reducing overall consenting times to twelve months from an average of eighteen months.^[4]

Energy

Each zone is supported by a Connections Accelerator Service, providing enhanced engineering support to find solutions to grid connection delays. The government acknowledged that surplus renewable energy generation — particularly wind power in Scotland and northern England — can be harnessed by data centres locating in those areas, reducing electricity system costs and enabling discounted energy tariffs for qualifying sites.^[5]

Local retention of business rates

In England, local authorities within AI Growth Zones will retain 100% of business rate growth generated by zone developments for twenty-five years from April 2027, providing an estimated £5 million to £10 million in additional annual revenue per completed site.^[6]

Designated zones

As of early 2026, five AI Growth Zones have been designated across Great Britain.^[7]

Culham, Oxfordshire

Culham was announced as the first AI Growth Zone on 13 January 2025, alongside the publication of the AI Opportunities Action Plan. The site is located at Culham Campus, home to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in South Oxfordshire. The campus benefits from existing high-capacity grid connections, available land, and proximity to the UK's fusion research programme. A data centre beginning at 100MW is planned for the site, with ambitions to scale to 500MW and beyond. The UKAEA launched a procurement process for a strategic investment partner to develop the campus commercially.^[8]^[9]

North East England

The North East was designated as the second AI Growth Zone on 17 September 2025, announced alongside a UK-US technology partnership agreement. The zone encompasses two distinct sites: Cobalt Park in North Tyneside, home to the Stellium Data Centers campus, and a site at Cambois near Blyth in Northumberland where Blackstone subsidiary QTS is developing a £10 billion data centre campus. The zone is projected to attract up to £30 billion in total investment and create more than 5,000 jobs, with plans to expand energy capacity to 1.1GW over six years.^[10] Cobalt Park was also confirmed as a host site for Stargate UK, a joint infrastructure venture between OpenAI, Nvidia, and British firm Nscale.^[11]

North Wales

The North Wales AI Growth Zone was announced on 13 November 2025, centred on a site along the Menai Strait on Anglesey.^[12]

South Wales

The South Wales AI Growth Zone was announced on 20 November 2025 as part of a broader wave of AI investment plans.^[13]

Lanarkshire, Scotland

The Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone was designated on 29 January 2026, making it the first AI Growth Zone in Scotland. The site is located in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, and is delivered by Scottish data centre operator DataVita, a subsidiary of HFD Group. The designation is expected to create more than 3,400 jobs and attract £8.2 billion in private investment. DataVita is delivering the zone in partnership with AI cloud infrastructure firm CoreWeave, which has committed £1.5 billion to the project. Plans include 500MW of AI-ready data centre capacity and more than 1GW of privately wired renewable energy infrastructure.^[14]^[15]

The Scottish Government welcomed the designation. The site takes advantage of Scotland's surplus renewable energy capacity, which can exceed the grid's transmission capacity at peak generation periods, making data centres in the region eligible for electricity cost discounts under the AIGZ framework.