UK AI Growth Zones tracker: what is funded, what is built and what is only announced

AI Growth Zones are the UK government's main tool for getting AI data centers built: designated sites that get faster access to power and planning, announced as part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan at the start of 2025. The Register notes the government said sites would be chosen partly on power availability.

This page keeps one record of the five zones, what is documented for each, and what is not. We update it as new filings, financing and government statements arrive. Last updated November 3, 2026. Entries marked unverified rest on a single source or on headlines that do not name the zone.

The five zones

The government's AI Growth Zones collection on GOV.UK lists five. Its entries give dates and headlines, but not megawatts, operators or site-level investment, so we have not filled those gaps with estimates.

• Oxfordshire. Listed April 30, 2025, under the press release headline "AI Growth Zone delivery gathers speed." No capacity, operator or investment figure in the collection. Unverified.
• North East. Listed September 16, 2025. Data Centre Review describes this zone as centered on expansions by Cobalt Park Data Centres and QTS Cambois. No megawatt or investment figure in the sources we opened.
• North Wales. Listed November 13, 2025 under the headline "new site confirmed for North Wales." The collection's headline wording refers to "up to £100 billion," but the headline does not say that applies to North Wales alone, so we do not treat it as a site figure.
• South Wales. Listed November 20, 2025. Same limits: a date and a headline, no site figures we could verify.
• Scotland, Lanarkshire. Listed January 29, 2026. The only zone with detailed public numbers. See below.

The entries for North East and Oxfordshire rely on list order in the collection, because their headlines do not name the zone. We would correct them against the underlying press releases.

Lanarkshire: the one with numbers

Data Centre Review reported on January 29, 2026 that Lanarkshire was the fifth AI Growth Zone and the first in Scotland. Unlike zones spread across several operators, it centers on one expanded campus: DataVita's, delivered with the AI cloud provider CoreWeave. The announcement carried these figures:

• £8.2 billion of private investment.
• 100 MW of AI-ready data center capacity.
• Over 1 GW of renewable energy infrastructure connected via private wire.
• A community fund of up to £543 million over 15 years, raised as capacity comes online.
• More than 3,000 jobs expected, about 800 of them higher-paid AI and digital roles. The government's collection says "more than 3,400 jobs." We have not resolved the difference.

Then the financing. The Register reported on August 19, 2026 that DataVita secured a £300 million ($406 million) debt facility, with lenders including ING, ABN AMRO, Santander, the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services, and a £202 million guarantee from the National Wealth Fund. The money expands DV1 and builds a new DV3. Once done, each provides 40 MW, and CoreWeave has leased both for 15 years.

Timeline from the same report: DV3 construction began in April 2026. The DV1 extension is due to finish at the end of 2026 and DV3 in summer 2027. About 600 construction jobs and roughly 100 permanent roles are expected.

DataVita managing director Danny Quinn told The Register that "every megawatt is contracted" and "This project is being delivered." That is the strongest commercial signal in the whole program so far: a customer, a lender and a build date.

One discrepancy to note. The 100 MW in the January announcement and the 80 MW in the August finance report are not the same number, and the sources we opened do not reconcile them.

Outside the zones

Several large UK projects are not, in the sources we opened, designated zones.

Drax, North Yorkshire. On November 3, 2026 Drax announced a partnership with Brookfield and Radiant to develop a data center of more than 1 GW on its power station estate. CNBC reports phase 1 as up to 100 MW from Q1 2028, with total investment that could exceed £20 billion including chips. It still needs planning, regulatory and network approvals and a tenant. Our full analysis is in our separate Drax report.

Nscale, near London. CNBC recounts that in October 2026 the Telegraph reported Microsoft pulled out of a deal to anchor an Nscale data center near London because of grid delays, and Nscale said it remained "committed" and was "exploring alternative power sources for the site." We covered the site in our Loughton report.

How to read the numbers

Three rules keep us honest on this page.

First, investment totals are not capacity. A figure like £20 billion includes semiconductors, which are a large share of the cost of an AI data center. Megawatts under construction or under lease are the better measure.

Second, designations are not builds. A zone is a status. It speeds up power and planning, but it does not guarantee an operator or a tenant.

Third, regional headlines mix zones. A programme-wide figure printed beside one zone's name is not that zone's number, and we mark it as such.

For the policy backdrop, see the UK AI package and our explainer on what sovereign AI means.

What we are watching

• A named operator and financing for any zone other than Lanarkshire.
• The reconciliation of Lanarkshire's 100 MW and 80 MW figures.
• Whether the Drax project is designated as a zone, or advances without that status.
• Energization dates, which matter more than announcement dates.

We will correct this tracker in place when any of these changes, rather than publishing a new article.