Drax, Brookfield and Radiant announce 1GW-plus AI data centre plan at Drax site
Published · Updated
What happened
Drax Group announced on 3 November 2026 a strategic partnership with Brookfield and Radiant to develop an AI data centre exceeding 1GW at the Drax Power Station site in North Yorkshire, with potential investment above £20 billion and a target start of operations in early 2028.
Why it matters
A proposed data centre above 1GW is large enough to affect power planning, transmission connections, land use and compute capacity allocation. The announcement gives investors, regulators and government a concrete project around which permitting, energy supply and industrial policy choices may now be tested.
Drax Group said it has formed a strategic partnership with Brookfield and Radiant to develop an AI data centre exceeding 1GW at Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire. The company said the project could involve more than £20 billion of investment and target operations from early 2028. The announcement puts a very large UK power-and-compute campus into the live pipeline and raises near-term questions on grid capacity, planning, and the conditions government will set for AI infrastructure build-out.
Watch for
Drax Group filing or investor statement by 2026-11-07 setting out project structure, capex phasing or exclusivity terms with Brookfield and Radiant National Grid ESO or the relevant transmission operator acknowledgement by 2026-11-07 of a connection request or queue position for the Drax site Department for Science, Innovation and Technology statement by 2026-11-07 on whether the project is being treated as strategic AI infrastructure North Yorkshire planning authority or UK planning portal record by 2026-11-07 showing pre-application activity or scoping documents tied to the Drax data centre proposal
Sources
- REG - Drax Group Plc - Strategic partnership for GW-scale data centre · tradingview.com
Researched and written by AI from the sources listed, under published rules. How V³ Aware is made