AI companies have told ministers they have 12 months to head off public opposition to datacentres in the UK or risk US-style protests that could threaten their construction.
Successive dry summers and rising energy bills are increasing public scrutiny of plans for the huge computer warehouses that are used to train and run AI models, says a submission to the Labour government from a group including the AI infrastructure companies Nvidia, Microsoft and Cisco.
Amid increasing anti-datacentre activism in the US and Europe, they are calling on ministers to create a “compact” that would show how communities can benefit from hosting datacentres, including allowing councils that host them to retain more tax revenues.
The move by the Sovereign AI Leadership (SAIL) taskforce reflects rising concern among tech companies that arguments that have blocked datacentre developments in parts of the US are taking hold in Britain. Microsoft has promised to invest $30bn (£22bn) in UK AI infrastructure.
Microsoft has built a datacentre in Acton, London and another is under construction in Newport, but wants to build several more facilities and is engaging with local and national leaders, including the prime minister, Andy Burnham, over the balance between the potential benefit of AI to the economy and public opposition to datacentres.
The SAIL group said: “In the United States, organised local opposition has stopped fully permitted datacentre projects, and moratoriums have been announced even in states that are otherwise pro-growth.
“Reporting from those places shows that AI itself is only a surface-level concern; distrust of corporate and government promises, fear of stranded assets and electricity costs run deeper. The same arguments have begun to appear here.”
It added: “Britain has a window – we think of roughly 12 months – to build a compact that earns public consent before that pattern takes hold.”
The taskforce is calling for the government to create a clear framework for councils and mayors to follow that will set out recommended terms for local benefit, including an indicative contribution – likely to be financial or in terms of facilities – scaled to a site’s size.
Opposition to datacentre construction is being fuelled by widening public concern about the safety of AI systems, after a summer in which some of the largest companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google appeared to lose control of some of their most cutting-edge AIs. Some protesters have begun resorting to direct action and the membership of anti-AI campaign groups has been growing rapidly.
The datacentre companies are determined to head off that opposition. The chair of the SAIL taskforce, Steve Rigby, said: “By establishing a clear prosperity compact between government, industry and local communities, we can build the infrastructure we need, equip our workforce with future-ready skills, and ensure Britain’s digital destiny. This taskforce’s goal isn’t another strategy document, but high-impact actions that materially accelerate the UK’s transition to an AI-enabled economy.”
It has not calculated the cost to central government finances if councils that grant permission to datacentres are allowed to keep all of their business rates.
Responding to the proposals, Joseph Miller, the director of PauseAI UK, which campaigns for a global pause to datacentre buildout, said: “People are going to feel it is undignified to be bought off by huge tech companies who do not share their interests.”
He said tech companies were “absolutely right to be worried” about US-style public opposition to datacentres growing in the UK. Kat Jones, the director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, which campaigns against datacentres, said tech companies had already “missed the boat on containing community opposition to hyperscale AI datacentres”.
“In Scotland, we have 15 community campaigns already working incredibly hard opposing these environmentally destructive developments locally, and a growing national campaign,” she said. “Even the titanic lobbying efforts of US big tech are going to find it a real challenge to change the winds of public opinion, which have already shifted solidly against hyperscale AI datacentres.”
Donald Campbell, the director of advocacy at the tech equity campaign Foxglove, said: “Big tech firms have spent years trying to force vast, highly polluting datacentres through the planning system under a blanket of secrecy and misleading information. Now, with the public waking up to the fact that these facilities plunder resources and wreck the climate, the US tech giants have decided that there’s a problem.”
He warned that incentivising councils to back datacentres by allowing them to keep more of their business rate revenue would mean “these wealthy tech giants would not pay a penny more” while boosts to council funding would “come from the pocket of central government services like the NHS”.
A government spokesperson said datacentres “should create British jobs and supply chains, and provide investment to the communities in which they are built, as well as prioritising clean power, using water responsibly”.
“For most proposed datacentre developments, community benefits are considered through the relevant local planning processes,” they said. “We have already announced measures which will enable local authorities hosting datacentres in AI growth zones in England to keep all the additional business rates they generate.”
