The government has no plan in case data centres fall into disuse following the potential bursting of the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble, which a campaign group has described as “alarming”.
Data centres are critical to the training and deployment of AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Claude, and demand for their construction has dramatically increased.
The water and energy requirements the facilities require have created a bottleneck in their deployment.
Areas in demanding the most AI usage, and consequently more data centre capacity, are also sometimes already experiencing water stress and facing grid connection delays.
This has led to calls for faster grid connections and some data centre developers are trying to deploy innovative generation technologies to power their facilities, such as landfill gas and fracking.
However, many people worry that the vast sums of money being put into AI and data centre developments are an economic bubble, a period where asset prices greatly outstrip their intrinsic value.
That bubble may burst if demand for AI suddenly drops, which may lead to reduced demand for data centre capacity. If there were less demand for data centres, some may be built, but no longer be required.
Using the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, NCE asked the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to share any documents it had, from the start of the Labour government on 4 July 2024 until the present day, showing what plans it had “in case data centres are built, but then stop being used”.
MHCLG is responsible for planning policy. It has previously taken action to address the problem of shops and other commercial premises on high streets which have fallen into disuse.
It responded to the FOI request on 24 June, saying: “The information you requested is not held by the Department.
“The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is responsible for the overall policy, security and resilience framework for data centres as part of the UK’s digital infrastructure.
“You may wish to contact DSIT.”
In July, DSIT was abolished, and its functions were redistributed across other departments as part of government changes following the appointment of Andy Burnham as prime minister.
NCE gave the newly created Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Cabinet Office the opportunity to comment, as they each have varying responsibilities for AI and “digital infrastructure”, which is the description the government uses for data centres.
None responded.
Foxglove director of advocacy Donald Campbell reviewed the FOI response for NCE.
Foxglove describes itself as “an independent non-profit organisation that fights to make tech fair for everyone”.
“It’s alarming that here’s another area in which they don’t seem to have thought through what the potential consequences are of data centres, but sadly it’s not very out of character in terms of the overall approach on data centres,” Campbell said.
“There does seem to have been a tendency to follow where the industry is leading and take what they’re saying as the unvarnished truth.”
Regarding claims made by technology company executives about the future of computing and AI, he said: “There’s not really enough planning for what happens if what the Big Tech industry is saying turns out maybe not to be true or not entirely true.”
He added: “It would be a good idea” for the government to consider the end of the lifecycle of data centres.
“There’s all this stuff in terms of demand and how much burden they’re putting on the grid,” he said.
“If, for example, the network providers are having to hugely upgrade grids in all these various areas to accommodate the data centres, and then the project doesn’t go ahead, or [the AI bubble bursts], and you’ve then got a lot of stranded infrastructure.
“It does seem like it would be something worth thinking about.”
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