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Latest / Chips, compute and energy

PolicyComputeGovernmentUKConfirmed

UK Budget sets a Data Centre Covenant: faster grid and planning for strategic sites that meet five tests

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Source: HM Treasury (GOV.UK)Also reported by ITPro

HM Treasury published the Data Centre Covenant with the 28 October 2026 Budget. It sets five tests that all data centres are encouraged to meet and strategic data centres must meet to get extra government help: pay their share of energy costs, agree a Local Benefit Plan with substantial investment in the host community, meet environmental standards (a Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.3 or better for new sites, annual energy and water reports, waste heat reuse where practical), create local jobs and apprenticeships and support British AI hardware, and work with the National Cyber Security Centre on resilience. In return a Ministerial Control Centre chaired by the Minister for AI will speed up grid connections and planning for qualifying sites, using Planning and Infrastructure Act powers to reserve and reallocate connection capacity, and in exceptional cases allow on-site power until a grid connection is ready. The government estimates the UK needs 6 GW of AI data centre capacity by 2030.

Why it matters

Developers seeking priority grid access in the UK will have to sign up to community investment, efficiency reporting and security commitments; the government says it will define which projects count as strategic later.

When
28 Oct 2026
ID
WTA-N-2026-0559
Who
HM Treasury, National Cyber Security Centre, NESO, Ofgem; John Healey

Summary written with AI by wheresthe.ai, from HM Treasury (GOV.UK) and the reporting credited above. Checked against the source on 30 Oct 2026.

Read the original at HM Treasury (GOV.UK)

Source copy: download the page as saved on 30 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: What happened nextDrax strikes £20bn deal for AI datacentre at North Yorkshire power plant

Data to measure this

Compare the years before 2026 with the years since in these series. National sources for United Kingdom come first.

  • Epoch AI: frontier AI data centresEpoch AISite-level timelines of IT power, compute (H100-equivalents) and capital cost for large AI data centres.live · download · CSV
  • IEA Energy and AI dataInternational Energy AgencyWorld and regional data-centre capacity, power usage effectiveness, load factor and electricity use.download · XLSX
  • TOP500 supercomputer listTOP500.orgThe 500 most powerful computer systems, ranked twice a year, with country, site and hardware.Years: 1993-2026 · semi-annual · query tool · Covers before and after
  • OECD.AI: venture capital investments in AI start-upsOECD.AI (data from Preqin)Venture capital invested in AI start-ups by country and industry, with series for generative AI and AI compute start-ups.live · query tool
  • Artificial Intelligence sector studyDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyNumber of UK AI companies, their revenue, value added, employment and investment.Years: 2022-2024 · annual · report only
  • Crunchbase company and funding dataCrunchbase · paidPrivate company profiles, funding rounds and acquisitions.live · api · API

All data for United Kingdom

Cite this story

WTA-N-2026-0559: “UK Budget sets a Data Centre Covenant: faster grid and planning for strategic sites that meet five tests.” wheresthe.ai, 28 Oct 2026. https://wheresthe.ai/d/gb-uk-data-centre-covenant-2026-10/ (source: HM Treasury (GOV.UK)).

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