#data-centres

#data-centres

The rapid growth of "energy-hungry" data centres is delaying new homes in London, just as its housing crisis is "at its worst", a new report has warned. Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services, such as streaming and artificial intelligence. However, they require masses of electricity from the National Grid to keep running.

An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed. Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from 375 a month down to as low as 40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub a small data centre containing more than 500 computers. Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks.

"This Tech Prosperity Deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the US, shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic," he said in a statement. "By teaming-up with world-class companies from both the UK and US, we're laying the foundations for a future where together we are world leaders in the technology of tomorrow, creating highly skilled jobs, putting more money in people's pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom."

These companies need those infrastructure resources anyway, he said. They're building datacentres all over the world. Maybe they were pushed a bit forward just to meet the timetable with this week's state visit. But it's all one-way traffic. We're a kind of vassal state technologically, we really are. The moment our companies, our tech companies, start developing any scale or ambition, they have to go to California, because we don't have the growth capital here.

Aker has announced plans to build an AI 'factory' in the Arctic, leveraging abundant green energy and natural cooling for data centres.

The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities has decided to increase electricity network charges for households while reducing the charges for large users, such as data centres.