SNP National Council Passes Motion to Freeze New Datacentres in Scotland

The Scottish government is set to consider a motion passed last Sunday by the Scottish National Party national council that calls for a freeze on all new datacentres. The Guardian reported that the motion has been forwarded to ministers, who will decide its exact scope and whether it applies to projects still awaiting planning permission.

A protest was held outside the Scottish parliament on 24 June against proposals for datacentres around Scotland.

Lesley Backhouse, who attended the national council meeting, said Scotland’s current datacentre plans amounted to “overdevelopment” and were “intrusive and not keeping with the local environment”. There are 24 hyperscale datacentre projects in various stages of planning in Scotland.

The Guardian reported that these projects combined would use more than one-and-a-half times the power Scotland uses at peak demand.

Graham Simpson, a member of the Scottish parliament representing North Lanarkshire, said a government-level assessment is needed. “I don’t think anyone is arguing that we should not have any datacentres in the UK or Scotland,” he said. ” The Guardian reported that the UK government last month released further details on the nine companies supported under the £500m Sovereign AI Fund launched in April.

Four of those nine companies are controlled by American firms, according to a freedom of information response. Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons science and technology select committee, said the UK’s AI investment strategy has been “very opportunistic” without a plan for sovereignty and criticised a lack of clarity in the Starmer government’s AI growth zones.