Power supply issues have been blamed for the delays in launching the UK’s largest supercomputer.
The huge data centre in Loughton, Essex has been hailed by the UK government but will miss its launch date next year and could potentially be delayed until the next decade.
Initial doubts surfaced in March when the Guardian revealed that the site was still far from operational. Now further concerns have arisen over an inability to obtain sufficient power supply before the 2027 go live date.
The Loughton site is being built by Nscale, a UK-based startup which has sought a £26bn flotation this year.
UK Power Networks (UKPN), the organisation responsible for connecting the site to the national grid, has reportedly told Nscale that the grid will not be able to sustain the site until the early to mid-2030s.
The issues with power supply were first reported by an AI industry newsletter called Morning Intelligence.
Despite Nscale insisting it is “committed to the project”, the failure to find a swift resolution to the power supply issues highlights how energy supply has become a major stumbling block to datacentre development. Nscale is investigating onsite power generation and options for speeding up the connection process.
Energy industry regulator Ofgem has previously warned of bottlenecks in applications for electricity applications. In June, it revealed 315 datacentres were queuing up to connect to the national grid. These datacentres represented 73GW of demand; the peak demand for energy from the entire country is 45GW.
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.”
A government spokesperson said Neso and Ofgem were working to ensure the right projects were getting power connections under a reform of the application process. “We are reversing decades of underinvestment and delivering the biggest upgrade to the grid in decades.”
