It’s a warm, sunny day at the Slough Trading Estate, where gray warehouses reign supreme. But inside one of these humble buildings, the future is visible.
At Equinix’s LD6 data center, Mike Oxborrow, senior sales engineer, demonstrates the high-security measures required to log in, including biometric scanning. Once past the airlock, known as the “man trap”, visitors are greeted by spotless corridors lined with cages full of servers, their fans working overtime to cool the hardware.
The center is one of six Equinix sites in the city, which is a key hub for some of London’s financial institutions. The demand for data centers is growing, driven by the rapid growth of AI and cloud computing. With the UK government recently designating data centers as “critical national infrastructure”, these large facilities are more important than ever.
“The boom is already here,” said Harro Beusker, CEO of nLighten, a data center developer. “In the last 25 years, IT has grown in importance, and now companies are investing more, and over economic cycles.”
This month, Amazon announced an £8 billion data center investment in the UK, promising 14,000 new jobs. Meanwhile, Global Infrastructure Partners and Microsoft launched a $30 billion global fund to support AI-driven data center projects. Investors, attracted by high capital requirements and high barriers to entry, are eager to tap into this fast-growing sector.
Data centers are no longer just urban phenomena. Regional bases are getting stronger, with Newcastle emerging as the most popular location. Firms like Stellium are building data centers there, spending less on space and labor costs while staying connected to undersea fiber-optic cables. AI may make these regional centers even more efficient, as they rely less on the low-latency requirements of traditional cloud computing.
Despite the hope, challenges remain. Data centers are power hungry, with their power needs set to increase sixfold over the next decade. As the industry grows, balancing energy demands with sustainability goals is a critical issue.
The future is not without its uncertainties, but what is clear is that the UK is at the forefront of the data center revolution. From Slough to Newcastle, these centers are driving technological change, creating jobs in the regions, and encouraging infrastructure investment across the country.
