Atlas of AI Buildout

Atlas / Countries / United Kingdom

Country

United Kingdom

Data centre capacity, electricity and supply-chain position · ISO GB

7.5 TWhdata-centre electricity · 2.6% of national generation · grade B, Derived

United Kingdom's data centres draw 7.5 TWh of electricity a year, which places it 6th of the 33 countries this atlas carries a figure for.

That is 2.6% of everything the country generates — well above the 1.2% median across those countries.

Set against 2.6 GW of installed capacity, that implies a 33% load factor.

One metro is tracked here: London / Slough, at 1,120 MW and operating.

Its strongest showing anywhere in the atlas is Systems & Facility on the ownership basis, at #5 of 9.

It does not register at all on Memory & Storage or Networking.

4 suppliers are domiciled here, booking roughly $32bn between them; the largest is National Grid.

Its single strongest grip on the buildout is Nuclear & SMR, where firms domiciled here hold 5% of global supply in a sub-layer weighted 0.70 for how hard it is to substitute.

About $30bn of AI infrastructure investment has been announced for United Kingdom, though announced is not built — that figure is graded A.

National context

Electricity generation292 TWh A
Data-centre electricity7.5 TWh B
— as a share of generation2.6% B
Installed data-centre capacity2.6 GW A
Tracked metro capacity1,120 MW B
Announced investment$30bn A
Population69.5m A
GDP$4,003bn A

Grid friction

Queue reform underway
Multi-year transmission connection queue with reform in progress.

Where United Kingdom ranks

The same tables read three ways. A country can lead one basis and be invisible on another, and that gap is the whole point of the atlas.

Tier Physicalassets here Ownershiprevenue booked Controlcould stop you
Silicon—#8of 9#10of 10
Memory & Storage———
Networking———
Systems & Facility#9of 54#5of 9#5of 9
Power & Grid#6of 77#8of 17#12of 12

Data centre metros (1)

London / Slough — OperatingEurope's largest market at 8.6% vacancy, adding 49 MW in H1 2026. Derived as the residual of the 3.8 GW FLAP-D total after the published Frankfurt and Paris figures. West London connection constraints have pushed projects to new sites.1,120 MW B

Supply positions

Share of each global sub-layer held by firms domiciled here, and how hard that sub-layer would be to substitute. Those two multiplied are what the control basis ranks on.

Silicon

Sub-layerShareSubstitutability
Design & IP2% B×0.85

Strongest single grip: Design & IP — 2% × 0.85 substitutability weight.

Systems & Facility

Sub-layerShareSubstitutability
DC development6% C×0.50
Colocation & neocloud6% B×0.45

Strongest single grip: DC development — 6% × 0.50 substitutability weight.

Power & Grid

Sub-layerShareSubstitutability
Nuclear & SMR5% C×0.70

Strongest single grip: Nuclear & SMR — 5% × 0.70 substitutability weight.

Suppliers domiciled here (4)

National Grid — TSO, networksPower & Grid$24bn
Arm — Instruction-set IPSiliconLicensing model gives influence far beyond its revenue.$4bn
nVent Electric — Liquid cooling, enclosuresSystems & Facility$3bn
Rolls-Royce SMR — Small modular reactorsPower & GridPre-revenue relative to programme scale.$1bn

Revenue is the group or segment figure closest to each tier's perimeter. Segment boundaries differ between issuers, so treat the split as indicative.

Open United Kingdom in the interactive atlas →

Every figure here is computed from the same tables the atlas reads, and is downloadable as CSV. Think something is wrong? Tell me — corrections are more useful than compliments.

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