There have been stories today about the AI Growth zone, for example this one from BBC, that with a headline that reads ‘second data centre planned for Lanarkshire’. This deserves a little scrutiny:
This was covered in The National: Are 3400 jobs really on the way from Scotland’s AI Growth Zone?
This may be a new funding (well it consists of loans and loan guarantees) that has been secured, but it is not a new development. What this press release is talking about are the two extensions currently being built on the site of the existing DataVita site in Chapelhall. They are called DV1 (the name of the original building) and DV3.
- DV1 is an extension to their current site and takes it from 24MW to 40MW (adding 16MW)
- DV3 is another extension which received planning approval in Jan 2026 but it is not clear what the power of the site will be. It is 4.4acres (1.8ha) and so will be smaller in size that their existing site. The plan views of the building show it around 1/3 the floor area of the existing building.
Since sites were eligible to be part of the AI Growth zone only if they would deliver a minimum of 500MW capacity by 2030, adding perhaps up to 30MW to an exisiting data centre is a tiny fraction of what would comprise the growth zone.
You can see information about DV1 and DV3 as well as other developments we believe are part of the AI Growth zone here: https://aprs.scot/chapelhall-ai-growth-zone/. Construction is well advanced on both extensions to the site.
The current site was originally a co-location and cloud computing data centre but their press release suggests that they will now be moving it over to AI use – contracting to Coreweave, a US company. If cloud computing capaicty is switched to AI – does that make it eligible to count towards the growth zone? will it get the discount in electricity costs of £24 per MWh awarded to AI Grwoth zones if it is not ‘new’ capacity?
In addition – many of the articles covering this story repeat the 3400 jobs claim which has been debunked in the Sunday Mail and the Guardian – see info here. Our Freedom of Information request showed that, of the UK Government estimate of 3400 jobs, less than 10% of those jobs were in the data centre and our research on data centre employment would suggest it will be far less in reality – just 20-50 jobs.
In addition, these jobs were projected for the AI Growth zone as a whole – to be eligible for the UK’s AI Growth Zones program, a qualifying project or site had to demonstrate the capacity to support a minimum of 500MW of power by 2030 so it is completely inaccurate to report this jobs figure for these two extensions that are currently being built. It is also very unclear how the AI Growth zone can get build data centre capacity to a minimum of 500MW by 2030.
Some of the reports also note that a team from Dell Technologies will be coming to the Strathclyde Business Park to be the first tenants of the AI Growth zone. This comes from another Data Vita press release which says that these Dell Technologies posts are simply relocating from Alexandra Parade in Glasgow, a 17 minute drive away. This is not creating jobs in the area along with the benefits that brings for people moving to the area, this is just moving jobs out of Glasgow.
Kat Jones said:
“This is not a ‘milestone’ in the creation of the AI Growth zone, as Stephen Flynn says, this is two extensions to the existing 24MW data centre at Chapelhall which are already well advanced in their construction. This is simply not new activity which can be attributed to the AI Growth zone, both were advanced in planning before the growth zone was even announced . Switching a data centre from a cloud and co-location data centre to an AI data centre does not make something an AI Growth zone.
The two extensions will bring the site up to 50 or 60MW, depending on the size of the second extension which looks in plans to be about a third the size of the existing 24MW data centre, but the AI Growth zone status is only awarded for developments that can demonstrate that they can scale to 500MW by 2030. That is 10 times this size.
It is misleading for Stephen Flynn to quote UK Government jobs figures that firstly, were for the whole 500MW AI Growth zone, and secondly have already been debunked as by the UK Government’s own figures. The Freedom of Information Request showed that the UK Government estimate put jobs in the data centre at only 10% of the 3400 estimate with all the others attributable to construction and induced jobes.
The Dell jobs that they announce as coming to North Lanarkshire are certainly not new jobs – they are simply relocating from Alexandra Parade in Glasgow, a 17 minute drive. I expect few, if any will be relocating to North lanarkshire and so, not only is this not creating new jobs, it is not even bringing the benefits of people relocating to the area.