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Drax Group signed an agreement on Tuesday with Brookfield and its , Radiant, to develop an AI data center on the Drax Power Station estate in North Yorkshire that could pass 1 gigawatt.
Brookfield estimates total investment, chips included, could exceed £20 billion ($26.8 billion), with £2.5 billion for a first phase of up to 100 megawatts from early 2028 on grid power. Another 500 megawatts would follow between 2028 and 2031. Nothing is final: phase one needs planning, regulatory and network approvals and a tenant.
Drax shares rose about 8.8% in early trading. A power station is the obvious answer to Britain's real AI problem, which is the wait for a grid connection: Microsoft walked away from anchoring an Nscale site near London last month over grid delays.
Drax, Brookfield and Radiant plan a gigawatt AI campus at a Yorkshire power station
Drax Group signed an agreement on Tuesday with Brookfield and its neocloud, Radiant, to develop an AI data center on the Drax Power Station estate in North Yorkshire that could pass 1 gigawatt. Brookfield estimates total investment, chips included, could exceed £20 billion ($26.8 billion), with £2.5 billion for a first phase of up to 100 megawatts from early 2028 on grid power. Another 500 megawatts would follow between 2028 and 2031. Nothing is final: phase one needs planning, regulatory and network approvals and a tenant. Drax shares rose about 8.8% in early trading.
A power station is the obvious answer to Britain's real AI problem, which is the wait for a grid connection: Microsoft walked away from anchoring an Nscale site near London last month over grid delays. SourcesB
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This story ran in the Morning Brief of November 3rd 2026.