Scotland’s governing party wants to freeze every new datacentre in the country. If ministers agree, a core pillar of the UK’s AI strategy could stall.
The Scottish government is weighing a sweeping moratorium on new datacentres. Last Sunday, the Scottish National Party (SNP) voted to freeze all new builds, the Guardian reports. The motion now sits with ministers.
As drafted, the freeze could cover every datacentre project that has not yet won planning permission. The exact scope is for the government to set. Lesley Backhouse, a councillor from one of the constituencies behind the motion, called the current plans “extreme overdevelopment”.
Why Scotland matters to the AI plan
British officials have pushed Scotland as the prime home for datacentres, thanks to its plentiful renewable energy. That makes a freeze awkward. It could halt sites such as the Lanarkshire “AI growth zone”. That project anchors the plan to build national AI infrastructure across rural Britain.
