The map of planned data centers shows how badly the UK needs to split its single pricing zone for electricity.
There should be more incentive to build data centers in the north, where there is plenty of renewable power but limited capacity to transport that power south.
Germany also has a single pricing zone and a similar north/south problem. It causes expensive curtailment and redispatch operations whenever the grid cannot physically transport the power from north to south the way it was traded.
I'd imagine that a large part of the demand for data centres in the South is driven by the need for extreme low latency with the City of London and other financial centres like Frankfurt.
It's all well to say there should be more incentive to build data centres in the North, but physics is physics.
Low latency is desirable for stock traders. Most of the data center growth isn't driven by that but by non latency critical workloads such as AI.
The reason, data centers choose to be near London is because there is no pricing advantage to go up north. Even though energy is plentiful, readily accessible, and often curtailed when there's too much of it there. If there was a pricing difference, you'd see a lot more economic activity up north.
Basically the physical advantage is there but the lack of economics cover it up and wipe out the advantage.
maybe time to move the city of london's data centers too? meta doesn't have a huge data center in their corporate offices either.
It seems fine that financial centers subsidise other regions. GP wasn't asking to ban building the data centers there, just make it more expensive. Because the delivery is more expensive.
It could be that. Or it could just be that it’s logistically easier to keep your data centre close to your London office.
which is why the price in electricity isn't truly being reflected properly by the cost of distribution.
If it costs less up north, then there would be incentive to move demand there (for data centers, which is more location agnostic). But if the price is the same up north, then the locality becomes a deciding factor.
Throw this in the bin of "fun consequences of price controls".
OTOH a market without a regulator is literally a jungle
well is the demand about inference or training?
The existing cluster of data centres in West London pre-dates the current AI boom, and the UK's "IT corridor" is generally based between London and Reading and Oxford and Cambridge. There's an emerging tech hub in the North West, but generally it's not there yet.
the amount of DC space that is actually interested in those extremely low latencies is very small
Doesn’t the electricity move through the national grid fairly well? I don’t don’t disagree though, data centres in the north where there’s more space seems sensible.
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Thanks god we're getting rid of nuclear energy btw.
Didn't the gov just announce new reactors were being built? In any case UK has a lot of windpower.
The UK is building new nuclear (albeit slowly).
London has had a housing crisis long before anyone ever dreamed of an LLM.
And it's had scapegoats for just as long! Everything is going according to plan really. It's not the tax scheme, or the zoning, or the construction costs, or the concentration of labor opportunities in London. Don't be daft!
Britain seems interested in actively undoing technological progress for some reason. A deindustrial revolution you might call it!
It is truly embarrassing the lengths the UK will go to avoid simply generating more electricity.
It's not about "not enought ectricity". It's about they need thicker cables and bigger substations.
[deleted]
Yeah, like building infrastructure stuff!
And to avoid simply building more homes. There's been a housing shortage for 50+ years, it's a little late to blame the 2025 datacenter craze for the problem
Once the bubble pops, maybe they can be converted into homes?
Data centres have big halls, usually no windows whatsoever, and are wide and flat so windows are only possible at the edges. They're even worse for conversion than office buildings.
Better to raze them and build apartment buildings.
Seeing how short all the buildings are in London, its housing shortage is obviously fairly self imposed in that city.
Lack of housing is almost always a zoning issue. Builders will always build if there's money to be made and people to sell houses to. The only reason they're not is because they're not allowed to.
You’re often not even allowed to build things that aren’t in keeping with the area even if nobody can see the bits of the property. It’s mostly about stopping people nearby having a nicer house than you.
You could easily build plenty of high rises but they are either insanely overpriced or extremely poor quality in London.
Why? Even if the data centers are built for just AI, they can just ditch the GPUs and reuse them for storage etc .. no?
Everyone seems to be carrying a smartphone, continuously creating more high res photos and videos..
It's _never_ going to pop. It'll just inflate and inflate until it's big enough to take us all with it. To the singularity.
The map of planned data centers shows how badly the UK needs to split its single pricing zone for electricity.
There should be more incentive to build data centers in the north, where there is plenty of renewable power but limited capacity to transport that power south.
Germany also has a single pricing zone and a similar north/south problem. It causes expensive curtailment and redispatch operations whenever the grid cannot physically transport the power from north to south the way it was traded.
I'd imagine that a large part of the demand for data centres in the South is driven by the need for extreme low latency with the City of London and other financial centres like Frankfurt.
It's all well to say there should be more incentive to build data centres in the North, but physics is physics.
Low latency is desirable for stock traders. Most of the data center growth isn't driven by that but by non latency critical workloads such as AI.
The reason, data centers choose to be near London is because there is no pricing advantage to go up north. Even though energy is plentiful, readily accessible, and often curtailed when there's too much of it there. If there was a pricing difference, you'd see a lot more economic activity up north.
Basically the physical advantage is there but the lack of economics cover it up and wipe out the advantage.
maybe time to move the city of london's data centers too? meta doesn't have a huge data center in their corporate offices either.
It seems fine that financial centers subsidise other regions. GP wasn't asking to ban building the data centers there, just make it more expensive. Because the delivery is more expensive.
It could be that. Or it could just be that it’s logistically easier to keep your data centre close to your London office.
which is why the price in electricity isn't truly being reflected properly by the cost of distribution.
If it costs less up north, then there would be incentive to move demand there (for data centers, which is more location agnostic). But if the price is the same up north, then the locality becomes a deciding factor.
Throw this in the bin of "fun consequences of price controls".
OTOH a market without a regulator is literally a jungle
well is the demand about inference or training?
The existing cluster of data centres in West London pre-dates the current AI boom, and the UK's "IT corridor" is generally based between London and Reading and Oxford and Cambridge. There's an emerging tech hub in the North West, but generally it's not there yet.
the amount of DC space that is actually interested in those extremely low latencies is very small
Doesn’t the electricity move through the national grid fairly well? I don’t don’t disagree though, data centres in the north where there’s more space seems sensible.
Thanks god we're getting rid of nuclear energy btw.
Didn't the gov just announce new reactors were being built? In any case UK has a lot of windpower.
The UK is building new nuclear (albeit slowly).
London has had a housing crisis long before anyone ever dreamed of an LLM.
And it's had scapegoats for just as long! Everything is going according to plan really. It's not the tax scheme, or the zoning, or the construction costs, or the concentration of labor opportunities in London. Don't be daft!
Britain seems interested in actively undoing technological progress for some reason. A deindustrial revolution you might call it!
It is truly embarrassing the lengths the UK will go to avoid simply generating more electricity.
It's not about "not enought ectricity". It's about they need thicker cables and bigger substations.
Yeah, like building infrastructure stuff!
And to avoid simply building more homes. There's been a housing shortage for 50+ years, it's a little late to blame the 2025 datacenter craze for the problem
Once the bubble pops, maybe they can be converted into homes?
Data centres have big halls, usually no windows whatsoever, and are wide and flat so windows are only possible at the edges. They're even worse for conversion than office buildings.
Better to raze them and build apartment buildings.
Seeing how short all the buildings are in London, its housing shortage is obviously fairly self imposed in that city.
Lack of housing is almost always a zoning issue. Builders will always build if there's money to be made and people to sell houses to. The only reason they're not is because they're not allowed to.
You’re often not even allowed to build things that aren’t in keeping with the area even if nobody can see the bits of the property. It’s mostly about stopping people nearby having a nicer house than you.
You could easily build plenty of high rises but they are either insanely overpriced or extremely poor quality in London.
Why? Even if the data centers are built for just AI, they can just ditch the GPUs and reuse them for storage etc .. no?
Everyone seems to be carrying a smartphone, continuously creating more high res photos and videos..
It's _never_ going to pop. It'll just inflate and inflate until it's big enough to take us all with it. To the singularity.
Just like shopping malls