Data centres are an interesting case – a fairly recent development, certainly at scale. They control and support large sectors of the economy, handling essential transactions and data, as well as influencing through social media and other communications. By any criteria building and running them are part of industry.
Data centres are now a key component of a modern economy, indirectly adding value. And they will become more so with wider adoption of artificial intelligence tools.
We have data centres in Britain but on a small scale compared to other countries. Many data centres used by British companies and government are based overseas. It is another key industry that we urgently need to develop.
The Labour government appears to have woken up to this, with announcements about the importance of this sector.
But then they show their true colours. What they want is to throw the door open to foreign ownership of data centres in Britain. And that “investment” can just as easily go elsewhere sooner or later.
Data centres are power hungry, so much so that Google and other large IT companies are investigating small scale nuclear power plants dedicated to their own data centres.
But in Britain data centres will be subject to the same high energy prices and net zero dogma that beset steel production. And the government is ignoring the potential of small modular reactors, in which Rolls-Royce is a world leader.
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