Culham is seeking a partner for an AI data centre development after the Oxfordshire campus was chosen for the UK’s first AI Growth Zone (AIGZ).
The UK government announced this week (13 January) that Culham Campus, south of Oxford and home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority, will be the first of a number of AIGZs across the country to be chosen for the rapid build-out of data centres, drawing in investment from around the world.
The move is part of the government’s strategy to maintain the UK’s leadership in AI technology and harness its power in the fields of health, business and scientific discovery. Britain is currently the third largest AI market in the world, with an established, world-leading infrastructure for AI safety.
Within the region acknowledged by the government as ‘the home of some of the brightest scientific minds in the world’, the Culham AIGZ will serve a testing ground to drive forward research on how sustainable energy such as fusion can power AI ambitions.
The development at Culham is subject to a public-private partnership being agreed that delivers benefits to the local area, to the UKAEA’s fusion energy mission and to the UK’s wider national AI infrastructure. The private-sector partner would help develop one of the UK’s largest AI data centres, starting at 100MW of capacity and scaling up to 500MW. The AIGZ will deliver local benefits to Culham such as job creation, enhanced digital and energy infrastructure and sustainability initiatives.
Tim Bestwick, Deputy CEO, UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), said:
“AI and high-performance computing are central to UKAEA’s mission to lead the delivery of sustainable fusion energy. Culham Campus’ high-capacity and connection to the UK’s national electricity grid, coupled with its available land, positions it as a prime location for deploying substantial computing facilities.’’
Data centre development is speeding up in the region. CloudHQ has recently been confirmed as planning to build a new £1.9bn data centre campus on the site of the former power station at Didcot in south Oxfordshire, where an AWS data centre is already located. Successful AI-based companies in the region include TechBio company Exscientia, creator of AI-based space and defence software Oxford Dynamics and autonomous vehicle software success story Oxa.
The government believes AIGZs have the potential to grow the AI sector to support AI adoption across the economy and enable new strategic partnerships with leading AI players. The total sum for the projects is £14 billion, and supercomputer and new government teams to implement AI also forming part of the plans.
Matt Clifford, the author of the AI Opportunities Plan which the government is planning to adopt, stated that the UK has high-quality AI research and engineering talent in its universities, which are some of the best in the world for AI. He also said the country has a vibrant startup and scaleup scene, with an increasingly skilled and experienced entrepreneurial workforce and growing quantities of sophisticated capital available for ambitious companies.
Image provided by Culham Campus