Society’s widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has led to an increased requirement for data centres, but meeting data centres’ energy and water infrastructure needs is proving to be a challenge in the UK.

The development of data centres in the UK has shot up the agenda in recent years, partly driven by the government’s decision to classify them as critical national infrastructure, putting them on a similar footing in planning policy to electricity grids and reservoirs.

Demand for data centres has risen dramatically, and experts from civil engineering firms tell NCE that this is due, at least in part, to the rapid uptake of AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI.

A House of Commons Library research briefing from May 2026, Data centres: planning policy, sustainability, and resilience, describes them as “warehouse-like facilities that house the information technology (IT) equipment upon which almost all digital activity relies”.

Digital technology association techUK estimated that there were 450 data centres in the UK as of autumn 2024, with the government estimating that year’s total data centre capacity for Great Britain – defined as the maximum-rated IT load of colocation data centres [those that let space to businesses to house their servers and other equipment] – at 1.6GW.

Most of that capacity – 1.05GW – is from data centres based in London. Wales and the South East of England are the second and third largest areas for data centre capacity in Great Britain, with 154MW and 128MW respectively.

The House of Commons Library research briefing also confirmed that data centres currently consume 2.5% of the UK’s electricity, and electricity consumption is expected to rise by a factor of four by 2030.

It also stated that electricity demand for data centres in the UK was “expected to grow considerably in the coming years”, with estimates ranging from 3.3GW to 6.3GW, although even 6.3GW “may still not be enough to keep up with demand” for their computing power.

Arup data centres leader Gareth Williams says: “There are multiple different types of data centres. There are the ones that are training AI and need to receive a huge amount of data, which they sit there and churn through over an extended period of time.

“Those ones don’t need to be immediately next to the people that are going to use that information, so they can be anywhere, and I’ve seen those moving up into the Nordics and the kind of locations where you’ve got access to very economically priced green power, and you’ve got the advantage of the climate as well.”

Data centres require high volumes of electricity to power their equipment. Electricity turns into waste heat as it goes through the dense population of servers and other hardware, leading data centres to employ a variety of cooling techniques to prevent equipment failures. Locating them in cooler climates, like the Nordic countries, is more economical.

Williams adds that once AI models have been built, other types of data centres are then needed for customers to use the models, and those need to be located geographically closer to the users than the data centres used to train the models.

While AI model training and the deployment of those models represent “a big part of the growth” in demand for data centres, “they’re still providing a whole bunch of other services”, such as cloud storage and video call services, he says.

The data centres serving those traditional computing needs, which require fast access and can include banks and airlines, “need to be within relatively close proximity to clients”.

Hyperscale Data Center Campus in South Glamorgan, Cardiff

Powering AI

Locating data centres close to end users in the UK often means London and the South East, due to population density and high level of economic activity, and this also means joining highly congested queues to get a connection to the electricity grid.

While on-site power generation is viewed favourably by data centres in some contexts, a connection to the electricity grid is still extremely desirable. This is linked to a variety of benefits, such as the government’s work to decarbonise the electricity grid, as well as its resilience and reliability.

Arup associate director Mike Leaford explains that Arup’s data centre clients consider the availability of grid connections with adequate electricity capacity at potential sites as a key criterion before purchasing them for data centre development. “Generally, our clients will buy the site once the site has power,” he says.

Williams adds that some data centre developers have come to “at least” expect that the existing landowner has an “offer made by the utility to give them a timeframe for when power will be available and a price that it’s likely to cost”.

Aecom vice president – global energy markets Adrian Del Maestro says: “If you look at a map of the UK, most of the data centres are in the West London area, and the reason why there’s such a focus on that area is because there’s existing infrastructure.

“You’ve got existing skills, capabilities and supply chains. Everything’s there for them to build on; however, it is highly congested, [and] we’ve got very long grid connection time.”

Del Maestro points to a JLL report 2026 Global Data Center Market Outlook which – citing its own research – states that the average grid connection lead time for new 50MW data centres in London is seven years. “[According to the research] in Amsterdam and Tokyo, lead times are longer, 10 years, but London is high on the list of cities with the longest lead times.”

He also says that US data centre developers are turning to natural gas to fuel combined-cycle gas turbines on site because of how long they are having to wait for electricity grid connections.

However, he suspects that the developers intend the use of natural gas to be a short-term fix, while “looking at a portfolio of power solutions to complement that gas and increasingly move to low carbon”.

Distribution warehouses and a data centre logistics hub in Rugby, Warwickshire

NCE recently reported that enquiries from data centre developers to gas networks requesting grid connections had risen “exponentially”, with approximately three times as many submitted in 2025 compared to 2024.

The data was from Future Energy Networks (FEN), a trade association representing the gas network companies, which found that 113 such enquiries were sent in 2024 and 2025.

Del Maestro says in the recent past, the data centre industry showed interest in deploying small modular reactors (SMRs) to power data centres, but that interest has since waned.

“I think there was a lot of hype about SMRs. They can offer a very important and valuable fuel source because they’re small and therefore cheaper than a big nuclear reactor. There’s that whole thing around sovereign energy; it ticks that box of energy security,” he says.

“The challenge is SMRs are unlikely to be deployed, at least in the UK, until the early 2030s, but the data centre developers and hyperscalers need the power now.”

Data centre hyperscalers are the data centre developers responsible for building, owning and operating the largest data centres. Hyperscalers include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Meta and Oracle.

“There’s going to be a lag in terms of these coming onto the market, becoming standardised, and there may be some challenges around integrating them into the existing configuration, but the point is, they will be a solution in the future, but not now,” Del Maestro says.

In an op-ed for NCE, law firm Wedlake Bell partner Ed Phillips and solicitor James So discussed the impact of grid congestion on the delivery of data centres. They also explained what the government is trying to do to overcome the challenge of energy availability.

“New consultations propose greater flexibility in consenting options for data centres and on-site power generation facilities, reflecting a trend towards integrated development and the use of microgrids that can, where required, operate independent of the national grid,” they said.

High demand for data centres is not unique to the UK. The US is by far the biggest market, however, demand has also grown elsewhere, such as in Germany.

Arcadis managing director – manufacturing/technology Gordon Mauer says, “all the big data centres went to the Frankfurt market,” which is now a “hot market” with poor availability of land and power. On Germany’s north coast, where the North Sea is, there is good availability of offshore wind farms.

“We are now looking for additional sites, so we believe the North Sea will be one of the future hot spots, because there is a lot of power available, which is not used currently because the power grid has not been extended,” Mauer adds.

He explains that Arcadis helps clients to develop data centres in Germany in parallel with an application to the relevant local electricity grid manager, called transmission system operators (TSOs), to get a grid connection.

He says if a client “intends to start production or start renting in 2030 or 2031, we are now applying for the power, which is needed in ‘31, and that application is needed for the big TSOs to extend their substations and converter stations. So they [can] build the substations and converter stations.

“And in parallel, we can design and build data centres so whenever the grid extension has been finished, the data centre can start working.”

Water stress anxieties

Aside from land, electricity and a certain proximity to end users, data centres also require varying volumes of water. Demand for data centres is focused on areas of the UK already experiencing water stress.

Arcadis managing director – water (UK and Ireland) Lee Pearce says: “Data centres generate very large amounts of heat, which must be removed to maintain efficient operation and to avoid equipment failure. Water is often used for this as it is far more efficient than air at absorbing and transporting heat.

“Data centre water demand can be very high – equivalent to that of a small town in some instances – however, this very much depends on the technology used.”

Experts who spoke to NCE about data centres’ water demand had a variety of views on how much water data centres consume, with consumption having a different meaning to use.

Leaford says: “Data centres do need water, but they don’t necessarily consume water in their operation. They can have a closed-loop water system that takes the heat away from the data centre and uses conventional refrigeration systems to get rid of that heat, or there are systems that can evaporate water and consume water in that process in order to remove the heat.

“Generally speaking, those that consume water to cool will be more efficient than those that use it in a closed-loop system. Effectively, by consuming water, you’re offsetting power usage, which may well come from a power station that consumes water, so there’s a real balance there that needs to be considered.

“A lot of what we see reported in the press about data centre water consumption is factually inaccurate. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, but there’s a big difference between usage and consumption.”

Leaford clarifies that the misinformation about data centres and water lies in the emphasis placed on data centres needing to consume large volumes of potable water, when in fact they can be closed-loop and use lower-grade water.

He adds that a lot of the misinformation is “around quantities of water consumption, which are often based upon the only available information, which is usually from the US, and is usually out of date”, and talks about US data centres using more water than is the case in the UK.

Arcadis data centre global solutions lead and senior programme director Christian Goldsmith echoes Leaford in highlighting what he believes are inaccurate representations of data centres’ water demands in the press.

Data centre in Slough, Berkshire

“Data centres in the UK and Europe are often portrayed in the media as major and uncontrolled water consumers,” he says. “This misperception overlooks industry- standard design practice: the vast majority of modern data centres use closed-loop systems, robust water treatment, and alternative water sources to minimise potable water draw and overall consumption.

“Water Use Effectiveness is a core performance metric embedded in our design, procurement and operational practices.”

As things stand, the water most readily available from England’s water utility companies is potable, meaning that data centre developers would have to source their own less clean water which is still suitable for cooling purposes if they wanted to do that.

Goldsmith adds: “There are mature technical options that greatly reduce or eliminate potable water use – closed-loop chilled-water systems, dry and hybrid coolers, air-side economisation where feasible, adiabatic systems that use harvested water, and heat-reuse options that reduce cooling duty.

“Many projects combine multiple approaches to optimise for local climate, energy and water constraints.”

Leaford clarifies that not all water used in data centres is consumed, and not all water demand at data centres is for cooling.

“The vast majority of data centres in the UK don’t consume water. If you’re not consuming it for the cooling process, then there should be no issue,” he says.

Leaford makes what he says is an important distinction between water used for non-data-related activities like flushing toilets, cleaning and drinking, and water used specifically for the operation of the core data centre services, such as cooling the computer equipment.

Del Maestro says an issue which is “not talked about” is a “lack of coordination between the water companies and the planning authorities,” which results in water companies finding out late about increased demand in their area from new data centre developments.

“When the local authorities give their consent to develop data centres, from my conversations that I’ve had with the sector, there is no formal notification to the water company that these data centres are appearing, and suddenly the water companies get nervous that there are three or four data centres within their jurisdiction.

“I also think water companies’ water management plans still don’t have data centres as a source of water consumption, so it’s all about making all these different stakeholders aware of the impact of water, so that we can coordinate better what the implications are.”

Bentley Systems’ IPA think tank vice president Mark Coates has addressed the challenge of ensuring a good relationship between the water sector and data centre developers.

“Early engagement with water companies and local authorities provides a realistic picture of what is possible and avoids surprises late in development,” he told NCE in an op-ed.

“It also ensures that environmental impacts – including the temperature of discharged water – can be addressed before technical designs are fixed.

“Far from slowing progress, this approach reduces risk, shortens delays and increases the likelihood that sites remain operational under future climate scenarios.”

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