News

Datacentre energy efficiency and green IT

• May 19, 2026 19 May'26

  As AI costs spiral, Dell pitches return to on-premise datacentres

  With agentic AI driving up public cloud consumption, Dell Technologies is pitching local and hybrid infrastructure to shield enterprises from soaring token costs

• May 14, 2026 14 May'26

  Bradford datacentre with heat reuse gains planning consent

  Deep Green’s 5.6MW AI datacentre will take 24 months to build and will link up to an energy centre to heat buildings across Bradford city centre via pre-laid pipes

• May 13, 2026 13 May'26

  Data dive: Power grid data shows birth of AI in UK datacentres

  Electricity supply utilisation ratios show datacentre developer ‘land grab’, capacity switch-ons, the coming of Hopper and Blackwell GPUs, and usage ramping during training runs

• May 12, 2026 12 May'26

  IDCA datacentres report: Global concentration and the Goldilocks zone

  International Data Center Authority report shows capacity concentrated in a few developed nations, while ‘Goldilocks index’ shows which states can benefit from rapid development

• May 12, 2026 12 May'26

  Interview: Hitachi Vantara takes long view on business and sustainability

  We talk to Hitachi Vantara’s Simon Ninan about how the company looks to the far horizon when trying to match business needs with those of society

• May 11, 2026 11 May'26

  Inside the global datacentre squeeze

  A projected $800bn datacentre infrastructure investment in APAC alone is clashing with the limits of global power grids, forcing datacentre operators to rethink where and how they build the physical engines of the internet

• April 30, 2026 30 Apr'26

  India aims for the stars with orbital datacentres

  As terrestrial datacentres face severe power and cooling constraints, space-based facilities promise unlimited solar energy and low latency for AI inferencing, provided the industry can overcome challenges

• April 27, 2026 27 Apr'26

  DSIT gets sums badly wrong on AI datacentre carbon footprint

  Government revises July 2025 projections for AI-driven datacentre carbon footprint upwards by around 100x, but Carbon Brief suggests the numbers could be much higher still

• April 15, 2026 15 Apr'26

  Data dive: A new American Century in the datacentre pipeline?

  Looking at datacentre development internationally, we see how the UK faces apparent relative decline, how countries are responding to the AI age, and what MW vs GDP can tell us

• April 13, 2026 13 Apr'26

  Go West! US datacentres head for available and cheap energy

  Texas the hotspot as US datacentres enter the GW age, Virginia set to hold its status as ‘datacentre alley’, while constrained west coast states set for market share decline

• April 10, 2026 10 Apr'26

  OpenAI ‘pauses’ Stargate UK: Sudden setback or calculated move?

  OpenAI’s decision to pause Stargate UK, much vaunted and based on a memorandum of understanding with government, cites energy costs and regulation, but may be driven by wider uncertainties

• April 06, 2026 06 Apr'26

  Digital Realty CTO on AI tokenomics and datacentre infrastructure

  Chris Sharp talks up the pace of AI silicon innovation, the growth of inferencing workloads, and why boasting about datacentre megawatts misses the point

• April 02, 2026 02 Apr'26

  Data dive: UK government’s 2030 datacentre capacity targets look shaky

  We look at UK datacentre capacity – current and projected – and find DSIT’s 2030 target for 6GW of AI-capable capacity is currently out of reach, unless operators get a move on

• March 24, 2026 24 Mar'26

  Tata Communications unveils self-healing network

  Platform from digital ecosystem enabler aims to provide greater than 99.99% service availability to help enterprises reduce data centre operational costs by up to 30%

• March 23, 2026 23 Mar'26

  Bucks landfill datacentre first to get Nationally Significant status

  300MW proposed project is the first to be allowed to benefit from streamlined national-level planning process after being given Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project status by ministers

• March 19, 2026 19 Mar'26

  Hit the north! UK datacentre focus shifts to M62 and points north

  Barbour ABI data shows 8GW of total datacentre pipeline with most big projects in the north and Scotland, while London and the M4 corridor are about 25% of projected capacity

• March 12, 2026 12 Mar'26

  Enormous AI growth zone datacentre gets planning approval

  North Lincolnshire Council approves 1GW datacentre with nearby electricity generation, but environmental campaigners say the developers did their sums wrong

• March 11, 2026 11 Mar'26

  UK government reforms could see datacentres jump grid connection queue

  With electricity grid demand ballooning, the UK government plans for consultation and reform to ensure feasible and prioritised projects get the thumbs up

• March 11, 2026 11 Mar'26

  Neurons over silicon: Singapore plans first biological datacentre

  DayOne and Cortical Labs are bringing ‘wetware’ computing to the city-state, using living neurons grown from stem cells to support the demand for AI while addressing sustainability concerns

• March 05, 2026 05 Mar'26

  Huge grid and heat challenges ahead as Nvidia set for 1MW rack

  With Nvidia Feynman in 2028, 1MW datacentre racks will produce as much heat as 200 5kW ovens. Industry and government must respond, says Schneider Electric UK datacentre executive

• March 03, 2026 03 Mar'26

  National Grid, Nebius and Emerald hail datacentre power throttling

  In a UK-first trial, Emerald AI acts as intelligence in datacentre energy management to throttle demand at peak loads, including being able to respond rapidly to energy system stress

• February 26, 2026 26 Feb'26

  UK to see weekend protests against ‘dirty datacentres’

  Environmental charity Global Action Plan UK is coordinating a campaign effort to bring attention to wider concerns about datacentre electricity demand, water use and environmental impacts

• February 26, 2026 26 Feb'26

  First HPE datacentre modules set to land at Derbyshire AI site

  Carbon3.ai’s plans for a ‘national grid for AI’ based on renewable energy set to break ground for the first time at Derbyshire landfill site powered by off-grid gas

• February 18, 2026 18 Feb'26

  EU-South Korea research consortium gets to work on lowering AI chip energy use

  EU-South Korea research group is pioneering the use of photon-based hardware chips to help reduce the energy consumption of artificial intelligence datacentres

• February 12, 2026 12 Feb'26

  Power supply issues flagged as major growth inhibitor of European datacentre market

  The latest report into trends across the European datacentre market shines a light on how power supply issues are affecting growth

• February 11, 2026 11 Feb'26

  UK government datacentre planning decisions queried over environmental oversight admission

  The UK government’s admission that it made a mistake granting permission for a hyperscale datacentre to be built in Iver, Buckinghamshire, has raised questions about the validity of similar approved projects

• January 26, 2026 26 Jan'26

  STT GDC launches HVDC testbed to address AI’s power demands

  The FutureGrid Accelerator on Jurong Island will test the use of high-voltage direct current power systems, as traditional alternating current power systems can no longer address the growing energy needs of AI datacentres

• January 23, 2026 23 Jan'26

  UK government ‘blindly accepted’ Iver datacentre environmental assurances, it is claimed

  The UK government confirms that its decision to grant planning permission for a hyperscale datacentre, which is at the centre of a legal challenge on environmental grounds, should be quashed

• January 14, 2026 14 Jan'26

  Microsoft urges tech rivals to cover datacentre expansion-related power costs to protect consumers

  Microsoft claims it is not right for consumers to foot the bill for the rising energy costs caused by AI datacentre expansions, and is calling on the tech community to act accordingly

• December 22, 2025 22 Dec'25

  Top 10 datacentre stories of 2025

  It’s been a busy year for datacentre news, with the UK government’s ambitions to expand AI growth zones, along with controversies surrounding the effect of these plans on the environment. Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 datacentre stories of 2025

• December 19, 2025 19 Dec'25

  Government set for early 2026 court hearing over decision to approve Iver datacentre development

  A court date has been assigned for a legal action being brought against the government over its decision to grant planning permission for a datacentre in Iver

• November 26, 2025 26 Nov'25

  Organisations facing sustainability challenge amid AI ambitions

  Cisco and NTT Data executives warn that while business leaders drive AI adoption, both legacy infrastructure and rising energy costs are creating a sustainability bottleneck that requires urgent attention

• November 26, 2025 26 Nov'25

  Interview: Bridgette McAdoo of Genesys on steering sustainability goals to success

  How resolving to ‘leave society better than you found it’ can open up solid opportunities at the intersection of science-based initiatives and business objectives

• November 20, 2025 20 Nov'25

  Qualcomm and Humain launch AI engineering centre in Riyadh

  Saudi Arabia strengthens its artificial intelligence ambitions under Vision 2030 with a new Qualcomm-powered datacentre hub, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman highlights tech innovation during his US visit

• November 19, 2025 19 Nov'25

  Datacentre energy demands set to soar by 2030 as AI growth accelerates, predicts Gartner

  IT market watcher Gartner has shared its projections about how the energy consumption habits of datacentres are set to change as AI takes off

• November 16, 2025 16 Nov'25

  AI’s hidden sting: A threat to millions of bees

  The energy demands of artificial intelligence could have a devastating impact on Australia’s honeybee population, study warns

• November 14, 2025 14 Nov'25

  Dutch datacentre growth stalls while hydrogen remains untapped

  ING warns grid congestion threatens Dutch datacentre leadership, while the country’s championed hydrogen solution remains largely untapped

• November 13, 2025 13 Nov'25

  National Grid to extend Didcot substation in support of UK datacentre growth

  National Grid is continuing with its work to ensure the nation’s electricity grids have the capacity to cope with the UK’s growing number of datacentres

• October 28, 2025 28 Oct'25

  UK citizens raise red flags over environmental impacts of datacentres in poll

  A poll of 1,000 UK citizens reveals deep concerns about the energy and water usage habits of the nation’s growing footprint of datacentres

• October 16, 2025 16 Oct'25

  Questions over size of government’s legacy IT estate pose AI adoption issues

  Two House of Commons committees have turned their attention this week to the lack of transparency concerning the size of the government’s legacy IT estate, and what this means for its ability to adopt artificial intelligence technologies

• October 16, 2025 16 Oct'25

  Gitex 2025: Aramex partners with AWS to accelerate global IT modernisation

  UAE-based logistics giant completes the migration of its Oceania datacentre to AWS, marking the start of a global transformation to build an AI-ready, cloud-native infrastructure

• October 14, 2025 14 Oct'25

  Khazna leads UAE’s global AI push with massive datacentre expansion

  Announced at Gitex Global 2025, Khazna is accelerating its international and domestic expansion, providing the AI-ready infrastructure underpinning the UAE’s ambition to become a global technology leader

• October 06, 2025 06 Oct'25

  Government urged to scrutinise datacentre developers’ environmental claims

  Report by environmental non-profit Foxglove suggests the government’s pro-datacentre agenda could derail the UK’s decarbonisation efforts

• September 29, 2025 29 Sep'25

  Finland government tax proposal worries datacentre investors

  Finland, like other Nordic countries, is targeting datacentre investment, but could tax reforms scupper this plan?

• September 26, 2025 26 Sep'25

  Amazon joins coalition to reduce water usage habits of AI datacentres

  Amazon is joining forces with academics, research groups and utility firms to reduce the water usage habits of datacentres, and also find ways that AI can help tackle the problem of water scarcity in some regions of the world

• September 26, 2025 26 Sep'25

  AI infrastructure provider Nscale secures $1.1bn in series B funding

  A week after it was revealed that Nscale would be working with Microsoft to build the UK's largest supercomputer, the company announces it has secured $1.1bn in series B funding

• September 25, 2025 25 Sep'25

  Green energy microgrids hailed as cost-effective answer to UK’s datacentre energy supply woes

  Research from the Centre for Net Zero claims green energy microgrids could be a more cost-efficient alternative to nuclear small modular reactors when it comes to powering the UK’s datacentres

• September 24, 2025 24 Sep'25

  FT 250 executives call for UK grid upgrades to support AI datacentre expansion plans

  A poll by the Energy Networks Association reveals FTSE 250 attitudes towards the state of the UK’s electrical grids

• September 24, 2025 24 Sep'25

  Digital Catapult sets sights on boosting AI take-up in agrifood sector

  Innovation organisation announces details of its agrifood startup accelerator programme, which is geared towards boosting adoption of artificial intelligence in the sector

• September 17, 2025 17 Sep'25

  Government confirms North East as location of second AI growth zone

  UK government has selected two sites near to Newcastle as the home of its second AI growth zone, with one of them confirmed to be housing compute infrastructure for OpenAI's Stargate UK initiative