Scotland’s nominated ‘AI Growth Zone’ has been boosted by a new £300 million datacentre investment programme in North Lanarkshire.
DataVita, which operates the country’s largest Tier III certified datacentres between Glasgow and Edinburgh, will continue its planned expansion after agreeing the ‘debt facility’ with a syndicate of lenders.
The facility is underpinned by a £202 million financial guarantee from the Leeds-headquartered ‘National Wealth Fund’, which will allow DataVita to expand its existing DV1 data centre and fund the construction of a new data centre, DV3.
The capacity of both is contracted to AI cloud firm CoreWeave, the infrastructure provider to many of the world’s leading AI labs, under a 15-year lease agreement.
The financing will enable the delivery of Scotland’s first AI data centres within a designated AI Growth Zone, strengthening sovereign AI capability and driving growth in the wider Glasgow city region.
This development of DV1 and DV3 will act as the first step in a larger planned data centre campus in the area, helping to establish North Lanarkshire as a key location for AI infrastructure in the UK.
The two developments financed by this facility will create around 600 jobs during construction as well as around 100 permanent high-skilled jobs once completed. The investment will be supported by lenders including ING, ABN AMRO, Santander, the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services.
Danny Quinn, managing director at DataVita, said: “There is plenty of talk about AI infrastructure just now. This project is being delivered: work is well advanced on site, every megawatt is contracted, and the first facility completes this year.
“DataVita delivers AI infrastructure end to end, from the energy that powers it through to the applications that run on it. We have been doing this in Scotland for more than ten years. The UK needs its own AI capability, built here and run here, and we are grateful to the National Wealth Fund and our lenders for backing a project that is already delivering it.”
DataVita has been part of Scotland’s digital infrastructure for more than ten years and is the country’s largest independent data centre developer and operator. The company delivers AI infrastructure end to end, utilising low carbon electricity, datacentres, sovereign cloud and connectivity through to the AI platforms its customers run. Its customers include central government, local authorities and universities, which rely on DataVita to keep critical national workloads on sovereign UK infrastructure.
Earlier this year, DataVita’s North Lanarkshire site was awarded Scotland’s first AI Growth Zone designation, recognising the company’s role in building the next generation of UK AI infrastructure.
UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said: “AI is already helping scientists discover new medicines, supporting better public services and helping businesses get more done. The countries that build the infrastructure behind this technology will be the ones that attract investment, create jobs and help shape the industries of the future.
“That’s why today’s announcements matter. They will help ensure Scotland is at the forefront of one of the biggest economic opportunities of our time, bringing investment, reindustrialisation and opportunities to communities like Lanarkshire.”