The UK government recently announced what it called its ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ which recommended ways to grow the UK’s artificial intelligence sector, drive adoption of AI across the economy to boost growth and improve products and services. The government also revealed plans to set up a number of ‘AI Growth Zones’ with the aim of unlocking investment in AI-enabled data centres and support infrastructure by improving access to power and facilitating planning.
This all sounds very promising but what do these announcements mean for the energy industry and how can data centre developers and operators optimise their power/energy solutions to facilitate the proliferation of high-density AI workloads? At first glance, the challenges seem immense, although not insurmountable.
Before we get into the detail, we need to understand exactly what these government initiatives consist of.
‘Ramping up’ AI adoption
The AI Opportunities Action Plan has been described by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology as “a roadmap to capture the opportunities of AI to enhance growth and productivity and create tangible benefits for UK citizens”. Put another way, the aim is to “ramp up” AI adoption across the UK to boost economic growth, provide jobs for the future and improve people's everyday lives. AI must be harnessed to enhance healthcare and education, improve how citizens interact with their government and increase the prevalence of AI in people’s working lives to open up new opportunities.
Pointing out that the UK is the world’s third largest AI market, the government says the plan is based around three core goals – invest in the foundations of AI, position the UK as the best state partner to those building frontier AI and push hard on cross-economy AI adoption. The government says: “The public sector should rapidly pilot and scale AI products and services and encourage the private sector to do the same.”
The plan, then, is to build a secure and sustainable AI Infrastructure within the UK, which involves having access to sufficient computational power. This means data centres capable of housing the large and complex computers that are required for AI model training, inference and real-time inference.
Tied in with this opportunities programme is the creation of AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) that are designed to facilitate the accelerated build-out of AI data centres. For example, AIGZs could benefit from a streamlined planning process that is focused on delivering clean power. At the same time, the government is looking at other ways of boosting this build-out, including making AI data centres eligible for relief schemes that incentivise investment.
500MW AI infrastructure cluster by 2030
The UK government wants to build strategic partnerships with AI developers to work on shared AI and AI-enabled priorities. More specifically, the government is looking to work with data centre developers and energy solutions firms to establish at least a 500MW AI infrastructure cluster by 2030. Officials are particularly interested in strategic proposals that go beyond data centre developments to contribute to the UK’s broader AI ecosystem, including research, innovation, skills development and energy solutions.
The government wants key players within the AI sector to:
• set out a clear pathway to 500MW+ capacity, including rough timelines and key development milestones
• identify what support is needed from government to unlock development
• indicate any partnership opportunities with local authorities and/or ways in which an AI Growth Zone proposal would support the UK’s wider AI ecosystem beyond providing greater computing power
At the same time, local authorities are going to be tasked with offering:
• sites with large existing power connections (100MW+)
• deindustrialised areas with land and infrastructure suitable for redevelopment
• locations near land suitable for hosting low carbon power generation and storage
• regions with an existing tech or industrial base that could benefit from AI infrastructure and support the formation of a wider innovation hub
The energy implications of AI expansion
So far so good, but what do all these plans mean for data centre producers and operators and how do they impact the energy sector in general? It’s clear that such ambitious plans for an AI-driven future demand careful management of energy resources combined with intelligent infrastructure development.
As we know from experience, AI models require high-density computing which leads to an inevitable increase in demand for energy. It follows then that AI Growth Zones are likely to accelerate the demand for scalable and sustainable power solutions and this development is especially rife with challenges and likely risks. Apart from the ever-present potential problem of rising energy costs, there are the obvious grid constraints that a massive expansion of data centres could expose. Capacity is already a problem on some existing power grids and the UK government’s AI drive will undoubtedly test limitations.
Also, sustainable power sources within the AI-powered industries will need to be reliable (and let’s not forget that even sustainable power solutions can sometimes have environmental impacts). Shifts in government policies and regulations can affect the viability and funding of sustainable power projects, so there will be a significant challenge for stakeholders to keep up-to-date with regulatory changes and ensure continued compliance. Finally, investing in future-proof technologies is equally important but can also incur unforeseen and even significant costs.
How can data centres optimise their power solutions?
This drive to AI and sustainable development highlights the importance of data centre developers and operators having resilient and flexible energy strategies in place.
To this end, AVK offers a range of sustainable power solutions that reduce reliance on traditional power sources and ensure uptime and reliability. These include full prime microgrids. Offering a resilient and flexible power supply, microgrids can integrate renewable energy sources and provide backup power during outages. Other solutions include renewables, standby options, hydrogen-powered backup and battery storage. Storage solutions can enable energy loads to be managed more effectively, with excess energy stored when demand is low for release during more peak periods. In addition, to flag up inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, AVK specialises in the implementation of advanced energy management systems (EMSs) that enable users to monitor and control their energy usage in real-time.
By being “technology agnostic”, AVK is able to focus on delivering the optimal power solution through the application of the very latest technology, backed by the expertise and experience of such impressive and long-standing partners as Wärtsilä and Rolls-Royce Power Systems. Through these collaborations, AVK is used to working with customers on their future roadmaps. That’s why the company is committed to future-proofing its products and developing solutions that are not short-term sticking plasters but instead are designed around long-term sustainability goals. AVK’s commitment to minimising the environmental impact of installations also stretches to the company investing in local production and supply chains.
In short, data centres are able to manage energy consumption better while lowering operational costs through effective load management. Strategies for energy efficiency can include advanced cooling technologies such as free, liquid and adiabatic. Also, server virtualisation, consolidation and optimisation can lead to lower numbers of servers being required.
Conclusion
The premise behind the UK government’s initiative on increasing the adoption of artificial intelligence through its action plan and AI Growth Zones is promising but the market has to be ready. The reality is that this new strategy is going to create a number of new challenges for data centre developers and operators who will need to be sure they are putting the best solutions available into practice while always complying with the very latest requirements. AVK stands ready to work with key players to ensure these energy challenges are met head-on in a practical, sustainable and affordable way.
