DataVita has submitted plans for a new data centre at Chapelhall, further expanding its presence in Scotland’s first AI Growth Zone.
The Scottish operator has applied to North Lanarkshire Council for planning permission in principle for DV4, which would become its third facility at the Chapelhall campus.
According to the planning application, DataVita plans to construct a new data centre building, alongside new road access, landscaping and open space, drainage, supporting plant, utilities and ancillary backup generation.
In total, the firm plans to invest around £849.6 million over two years of construction. That will support 2,650 construction job-years and 120 permanent skilled roles once operational. It has also proposed a £75 million community investment fund over 15 years.
Big expansion for Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone
DV4 is located entirely within the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone, which received its official designation by the UK Government earlier this year. It was the first AI Growth Zone in Scotland, and the UK’s fifth, and was almost entirely based around DataVita’s growing campus in the region.
DataVita already operates DV1 at Chapelhall and is constructing DV3 next door, while also running another facility in Glasgow. The UK Government believes that further build out of the AI Growth Zone will represent £8.2 billion of private investment and be responsible for more than 3,400 jobs.
Those figures are just estimates, however. Thus far, despite lofty ambitions for AI Growth Zones, recent analysis has found little evidence that designation had yet translated into faster planning activity. It was almost inevitable that DataVita would further expand its campus, however, meaning it was a less risky bet compared to some other AI Growth Zones.
In fact, expansion is already underway at DataVita’s campus. The firm secured a roughly £300 million debt facility to expand its existing DV1 data centre and construct a second facility, DV3 just last month. Now, it’s further expanding with another new data hall, one that has been designed to run on renewable electricity backed by certified Scottish generation, with a target PUE below 1.25.
That low PUE will likely be because its proposed cooling system would use a sealed closed loop without evaporative cooling, with the company targeting water consumption of no more than 0.05 litres per kWh.
Provision for heat recovery is also included, with DataVita saying discussions are under way over potential use of surplus heat at the replacement Monklands Hospital and neighbouring BioCity campus.
Scotland’s new 50MW rules come into play
Despite the inevitability of DV4, the new data centre is also entering the planning system shortly after the Scottish Government introduced additional oversight for large data centre developments.
Authorities must provide Ministers with the application, plans and supporting documents, together with either an environmental impact assessment or the council’s screening opinion where an EIA has not been prepared.
The direction is intended to give the Scottish Government greater oversight of the development pipeline and its implications for wider infrastructure, but it doesn’t automatically transfer determination of every project above 50MW to Ministers.
With DataVita reportedly targeting 120MW for its DV4 facility, it will sit comfortably above the new notification threshold. That shouldn’t really impact the project, however – especially given its presence in an AI Growth Zone, and the fact that when it received the designation DataVita said it planned more than 500MW of on-site power generation across the Lanarkshire development within four years.
That doesn’t mean that DataVita will be free from scrutiny. There are already activist groups across Scotland that have criticised the latest development, including Action to Protect Rural Scotland. It found DV4 to have a ‘totally inadequate’ environmental impact assessment, and cautioned the rapid expansion of the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone. That’s unsurprising for a group calling for a moratorium on data centre development in Scotland, however.
While there is no set date for when DataVita will get its planning decision, meaning it remains in limbo for now, on the normal four-month timetable for major developments in Scotland, a decision could come around the turn of the year. That means we could see the data centre operational by 2029 if construction gets underway shortly after approval.
