Brookfield, a Canadian asset manager, plans to build an artificial-intelligence data centre at Drax power station in North Yorkshire, in a deal that could eventually involve more than £20bn of investment. Shares in Drax rose by about 8 per cent in London on Tuesday after the announcement.
Brookfield will initially invest £2.5bn through its joint venture with Qai, a Qatari partner. The facility will be built by Radiant, Brookfield's British-based computing-infrastructure business. A first phase of about 100 megawatts is due to open from the first quarter of 2028, subject to planning and regulatory approval, with capacity rising to 500MW by 2031 and up to about one gigawatt in later years.
"If constructed in full, this project could become one of the largest data centres in the UK," said Will Gardiner, Drax's chief executive, adding that it could "protect hundreds of jobs" at the site.
From coal to compute
Drax was once Britain's largest coal-fired power station. It has since converted most of its units to burn imported wood pellets, a switch that has drawn criticism over its environmental claims. What it still has in abundance is something AI companies prize: land, cooling infrastructure and a large connection to the national grid.
That connection is the scarce asset. Developers across Britain face waits of years to plug new projects into the grid, and the power demands of AI have turned existing connections at former industrial sites into valuable property. The government has promised to make Britain a leading location for AI infrastructure, but high electricity prices remain a deterrent.
For Brookfield, which manages more than $1trn of assets, the deal adds to a growing portfolio of AI infrastructure. For Drax, whose subsidies for burning biomass are due to be reduced from 2027, it offers a new source of income from a site whose future had looked uncertain.
