Drax Power Station Could Become A £20bn AI Data Center Hub

Posted on Nov 5 • Originally published at fathom.news

Drax plans to turn its North Yorkshire power station into a giant AI data center with Brookfield, in a project that Brookfield says could top £20 billion in total investment, starting with £2.5 billion for the first phase.

The companies announced the partnership on Tuesday. Money comes from a joint venture between Brookfield and Qai, a Qatari AI infrastructure investor, which will back the project.

The site would grow in three steps, according to the companies.

The power station sits on 1,000 acres with 4 gigawatts of grid access and 2.6 gigawatts of power it can switch on when needed. It is also close to the UK's fiber network.

"If constructed in full, this project could become one of the largest data centres in the UK," said Drax CEO Will Gardiner.

AI data centers need huge, steady amounts of electricity, and new grid connections in the UK can take years. Drax already has the power, the land and the cooling, so it can skip much of that wait.

Gardiner said the project could protect hundreds of jobs at the site, which has run for more than 50 years. Brookfield's head of AI infrastructure, Sikander Rashid, said it would also create new jobs across Yorkshire.

Mahdi Yahya, CEO of Radiant, said it would give "British researchers, startups and enterprises access to frontier compute at home."

The £20 billion figure is Brookfield's estimate of what the full build could cost, not money already committed. Even the first phase depends on planning approval, sign-off from the government and the grid operator, and finding a customer to rent the space.

Drax says a local consultation will start shortly, with the formal planning process to follow. The partners also plan a voluntary fund for nearby communities.

Read Next: CoreWeave Hires CrowdStrike To Guard AI Data Centers