Ada🔸

Notes On: Britain’s New Data Centre Covenant 1. Let’s unpack this. Today’s document sets out what the British Government would like to see from data centre companies as they seek to grow/build in Britain. The Government estimates it requires 6GW of AI data centre capacity by 2030 to protect its national interests (some distance to go!) This is an effort to create a framework for rewarding strategically valuable infrastructure. 2. It is a voluntary sets of commitments, HOWEVER, the Government is clear: if you meet the five criteria, we will expedite your applications and offer preferential Govt support. 3. For ‘Middle Power Watchers’, note that this is slightly different from the approach Australia is currently seeking views on. Aus has been more explicit about what constitutes a strategic data centre and treats hosting frontier AI training as a distinct policy objective, separate from simply hosting large data centres. 4. The Govt will establish a new Ministerial Control Centre for considering supportive action for strategic data centres, chaired by the Minister for AI Kanishka Narayan (good news), supported by the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and relevant ministers from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and other departments. Doc is explicit: for those who pass the reward, the centre: “will use the power of the state to accelerate time to power and speed up the planning process for the most strategic data centres.” 5. This is a good start. Britain still has some distance to go on getting its compute rollout correct and needs to move beyond rhetoric, which I view this as being a solid effort to do. I know the teams working on this worked extremely hard too. Good job! 6. Finally: Aus is putting their views out for feedback atm. British officials following me - may be worth speaking to your Aussie cousins. I’ll put together a fuller analysis on both in future.