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AI Chips & Compute

UK’s largest AI supercomputer project delayed over power supply

The UK government-backed AI datacenter in Loughton, Essex, will miss its 2027 launch and may not obtain sufficient grid power until the early-to-mid 2030s, according to The Guardian.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-25 04:16

UK Power Networks (UKPN), which would connect the site to the local power grid, has told Nscale, the UK startup building the project, that the grid will not be able to supply sufficient power to the datacenter until the early to mid-2030s, according to the report. The power delay was first reported by Morning Intelligence, an AI industry newsletter. Nscale said it was “committed to the project,” The Guardian reported. The company has cleared the scaffolding yard site and is investigating whether it can generate power on-site and whether it can speed up the connection process. The failure to find a quick fix to the power supply issue underlines how much energy has become a hindrance to datacenter development, the report said.

The project had already drawn doubts after The Guardian revealed in March that the planned location was still an operational scaffolding yard. The Loughton site is being built by Nscale, a UK-based startup seeking a $35bn (£26bn) flotation this year. Keir Starmer’s government cited the Loughton project when announcing the UK’s AI strategy in 2025, describing it as the “largest UK sovereign AI datacentre.” Datacenters are central to AI technology such as chatbots.

Ofgem, the energy industry regulator, has warned of a logjam in applications for electricity connections. In June, it revealed there were 315 datacentres queueing to connect to the National Grid, representing 73GW of demand, compared with the peak energy demand for the entire country of 45GW. The Loughton site is seeking up to 90MW of capacity, equivalent to the energy consumption of about 315,000 homes.

UKPN said it could not comment on an individual project. Schemes with large energy demand also require work at a National Grid level to ensure energy demands can be met properly, it said. “In general, many datacentres, whilst they will connect to our distribution network, are awaiting works on the wider national electricity transmission network before they can begin operation,” a UKPN spokesperson said. National Grid said: “We’re continuing to work closely with NESO [the government-owned National Energy System Operator], distribution network operators and customers to identify opportunities to accelerate connections where possible and support economic growth.”