Data Centre Watch Updated 24 October 2026, 13:03 UTC

Data Centre Watch

Illustration: a matte, monolith-like data slab standing alone in a wildflower meadow, black cables fanning from its base into the soil like roots, a lone oak and a low sun behind.

The local fight over one field is one row in a national rush. This is a rolling, fully sourced record of what changed — the schemes, the planning decisions, the power and water, and the wider world picture.

107

days under a hosepipe ban

Under a hosepipe ban for 107 days — since 10 July 2026 (as of 24 October 2026).

Affinity Water — Central region (incl. WD5), extended to the East region

11 areas in drought, parts of 4 in severe · reservoirs 54% · the water picture →

Source: Affinity Water — Temporary Use Ban

Latest

44 entries matching · showing 16–30

  1. World Norway / United Kingdom 30 MW Reported

    Nscale's $35bn listing wobbles as its flagship site slips

    British GPU-cloud firm Nscale's $35bn NYSE listing (ticker NSCL; S-1 filed 18 September) is complicated by its flagship Norwegian data centre running about six months late: only 6.4MW of a planned 30MW is live, after cooling-system leaks, permitting, construction delays and a transformer fire, with workers housed on a floating hotel. The filing shows $103.4bn of active and contracted value but only $2.6bn active, and roughly 25,000 of 461,000 GPUs running; it lost $1.02bn in six months. It is building the site for ByteDance, and Anthropic may terminate part of its agreement if a delivery deadline slips.

    Why it matters: The 'build capacity ahead of demand' model, exposed: the gap between contracted and running capacity is what a public listing would be priced on.

    Source: Bloomberg / DCD [C]

  2. World Indiana, US 1100 MW Reported

    Microsoft funds 1.1GW of power for its Indiana campus

    Microsoft and NiSource have signed a 20-year agreement under which Microsoft funds roughly 1,100MW of new generation and transmission for its $1bn La Porte, Indiana campus, delivered from 2028. The utility says the deal shields other NIPSCO customers and saves them up to $140 a year (about $1.75bn in total), alongside 600MW of battery storage. The first three of six phase-one buildings are due in 2029, with an 11-building second phase after La Porte annexed 1,000 acres.

    Why it matters: The 'pay your own way' model, put in a contract: the tenant funds the power, and the utility sells the savings as political cover.

    Source: Inside INdiana Business [C]

  3. World Global Reported

    Data-centre builders pre-order generators two years ahead

    At Capacity Europe 2026, supply-chain leads reported that generators now take about two years to arrive and high-voltage transformers 12–18 months, so operators reserve manufacturing slots before designs are frozen — putting delivery speed ahead of price. It is the equipment scarcity that sets project timelines alongside the grid queue.

    Why it matters: Long before the power connects, the kit meant to back it up is already the bottleneck.

    Source: ETDatacenters / Capacity Europe [C]

  4. World Sydney, Australia Reported

    Anthropic signs a 15-year deal at DigiCo's Sydney campus

    Anthropic has signed a 15-year contract for capacity at DigiCo's SYD1 data centre in Sydney, the HMC Capital-backed operator's flagship site. Reported by the Australian Financial Review, it is the latest in a run of long-term anchor deals the AI lab has signed for compute this year.

    Why it matters: The AI labs are locking in years of capacity direct with operators — demand that, unlike the queue, is actually contracted.

    Source: Australian Financial Review [C]

  5. Updated 16 Oct World Kentucky, US 2200 MW Reported

    Meta named behind a 3,000-acre Kentucky campus

    Meta has been confirmed as the developer of a data-centre campus in Mason County, Kentucky — described as almost 3,000 acres by DCD and about 2,000 acres by Fox19. Under the community-benefits agreement it will invest roughly $10–15bn initially (reported as 'up to $800bn' over the life of the 40-year plan), fund $115m of road, water-treatment and pipeline works, and create 4,000+ construction and 300 permanent jobs — in return for a 40-year local property-tax break. Payments are $5m a year to local government and $2m a year to schools per phase, rising to $30m and $12m once fully built. Meta is expected to close on the property in November, with two lawsuits still pending; filings suggest up to six large buildings and capacity that could reach 2.2GW.

    Why it matters: A 40-year tax break for a campus of up to 2GW — the incentive bargain at its largest.

    Source: DCD + Fox19 / Ledger Independent [C]

    Changes (2)
    1. — Added the Fox19 detail: ~$15bn initial investment ('up to $800bn' over the life), per-phase payments of $5m/yr to local government and $2m/yr to schools, closing in November, and two pending lawsuits; noted the acreage is reported as ~2,000 (Fox19) and ~3,000 (DCD).
    2. — First filed.
  6. Updated 16 Oct World United States Reported

    The data-centre debt is being repriced

    After Firmus abandoned its ~A$44bn float, a bond sell-off hit data-centre names: CoreWeave's high-yield bonds fell to ~77 cents (yields ~17%), with Nebius and TeraWulf down too. Its five-year credit-default swaps blew past 1,000bp — implying roughly a 63% chance of default within five years, up from ~30% a year ago — as Oracle (288bp) and SoftBank (424bp) widened and CDS for Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia hit records. Gartner warns ~$3.5tn of AI-infrastructure investment could be written down by 2030. Later on 15 October, PitchBook reported CoreWeave's unsecured notes yielding 15–16.5%, JPMorgan cutting Applied Digital's project debt to Neutral on a looming 'supply overhang', and Cipher Digital raising $850m in convertibles. On 16 October the picture steadied: CoreWeave shares fell 15.5% on Wednesday but recovered ~5.9% on Thursday on Nvidia's public backing, and its backlog exceeds $100bn (about two-thirds investment-grade) — though analysts note Bell Canada's Regina campus still carries tenant-credit risk from CoreWeave and Cerebras, with Nebius and Iren shares down ~14% on the week. Reuters also reported on 15 October that the sell-off is testing the AI data-centre deal boom: PowerHouse paused a planned $4bn share sale, and lenders are demanding tougher terms.

    Why it matters: The debt under the build-out is being repriced — the financing side wobbling harder than any single float.

    Source: Reuters / The Telegraph [C]

    Changes (2)
    1. — Added Reuters' 15 Oct 'market selloff tests the AI data-centre deal boom' report — PowerHouse paused a planned $4bn share sale and lenders are demanding tougher terms.
    2. — First filed.
  7. Updated 16 Oct World National Capital Region, Canada 60 MW Reported

    Canada's federal government plans a 60MW hyperscale data centre

    Defence Construction Canada has issued an early notice for a $1.5–1.8bn, 60MW 'hyperscale' data centre somewhere in the National Capital Region, for Canada's cyber agency, the Communications Security Establishment. The project is not yet approved — the notice gives suppliers time to obtain security clearance ahead of a possible solicitation next winter — and comes as Ottawa publishes a framework for private data centres (lasting local benefit, no cost-shifting to consumers, minimised water and environmental impact) alongside an extra $500m of AI funding.

    Why it matters: A government building its own AI-scale data centre — while the same city reaches for the brakes on private ones.

    Source: CTV News / Ottawa Citizen [C]

    Changes (2)
    1. — Added that the facility is for Canada's cyber agency (CSE), the $1.5–1.8bn figure, and the new federal data-centre framework plus $500m of extra AI funding.
    2. — First filed.
  8. World Kentucky, US 1800 MW Reported

    Brookfield and NextEra plan a $100bn AI hub on a Cold War nuclear site

    The US Department of Energy announced a ~$100bn private investment to turn the former Paducah uranium-enrichment site in Kentucky into the 'Paducah American Energy Hub': Brookfield will build a 1.8GW AI/HPC data-centre campus and NextEra 2GW of gas-fired generation plus 2.6GW of batteries, on dedicated supply designed to return excess power to the grid. Phased to 2032; about 8,000 construction and 600 permanent jobs; closed-loop cooling.

    Why it matters: Decommissioned nuclear and industrial land, repackaged as an AI power campus — the pattern the UK keeps reaching for.

    Source: Yahoo Finance [C]

  9. World United Kingdom Reported

    Photonic-switch startup raises $125m to cut data-centre power

    Oxford's Salience Labs has raised $125m (£94m) — led by Bullhound, with AMD Ventures, Intel Capital and the British Business Bank — to scale silicon-photonic optical circuit switching, which keeps data as light to cut the energy spent moving it between chips. It follows a 64-port switch demonstration, with 128- and 256-port products on the roadmap.

    Why it matters: Power, not silicon, is the bottleneck — so money is flowing to anything that cuts energy per unit of compute.

    Source: City AM / Unite.AI [C]

  10. World Singapore / Australia Reported

    AirTrunk delays its $1.5bn Singapore listing

    Blackstone-backed data-centre operator AirTrunk has postponed a planned $1.5bn Singapore REIT IPO into next year amid an AI-stock sell-off, higher interest rates and cautious investors — the latest AI-infrastructure listing to stall after Firmus scrapped its float.

    Why it matters: The money behind the build-out is wobbling again — the financing side, not the planning or the power.

    Source: WSJ / The Business Times [C]

  11. World Batam, Indonesia 285 MW Reported

    Batam residents blockade a data centre over dried-up water

    Around 300 residents of the Sambau district blockaded Nongsa Digital Park on 5 Oct, saying their piped water had been cut for up to six months while the data centres next door kept running; tankers restored supply to only ~53% of households. Nine planned centres there would need ~285MW and ~29 million litres of water a day — about 8.4% of Batam's entire supply.

    Why it matters: The data-centre water fight made physical: two pipelines, two outcomes, same drought.

    Source: Startup Fortune / Jakarta Post [C]

  12. World Osaka, Japan 500 MW Reported

    NTT Data nears Anthropic's first Japan data centre — ¥1tn, 500MW in Osaka

    NTT Data is reportedly near a deal to build Anthropic's first Japan data centre, in Osaka: construction alone up to ¥1tn (~$6.3bn), drawing up to 500MW, with a deal targeted by the end of March 2027 and part of the site opening as early as 2028. Power is the hurdle — 500MW from the grid would be slow, so on-site generation and fuel cells are the reported fallback.

    Why it matters: AI compute keeps following the power and the land — and Japan is now in the queue.

    Source: Nikkei Asia via TNW [C]

  13. Updated 13 Oct World Netherlands 600 MW Reported

    Nebius signs as anchor tenant for Volt's €7bn Rotterdam 'AI gigafactory'

    Nebius has signed a long-term lease as anchor tenant for Volt's planned Rotterdam 'AI gigafactory' — 100,000 GPU slots and up to 200MW, the deal that unlocks the ~€7bn construction financing. The campus is planned to reach 600MW (with an 800MW ambition) on a Port of Rotterdam brownfield with its own 380kV connection; first capacity is targeted for late 2029–early 2030. It remains a construction project — no permit or build yet.

    Why it matters: Demand still has to come before the wires — even on a power-station-sized site, and even as the Dutch grid pauses new connections.

    Source: De Telegraaf / FD via TechTimes [C]

    Changes (2)
    1. — Added the deal scale: lock-in of 100,000 GPU slots and up to 200MW, the ~€7bn financing it unlocks, the 600–800MW build-out and the late-2029/early-2030 first phase.
    2. — First filed.
  14. Updated 13 Oct World Kaluga, Russia 63 MW Reported

    Drone strikes knock out three Yandex data centres

    Ukrainian drones hit Yandex facilities at Sasovo, Kaluga (~63MW) and now Vladimir within four days; the strikes took the ru-central1-b and ru-central1-a cloud zones offline, and Yandex says some are unlikely to be restored soon — a second cloud provider lost to drones this year, after AWS's Bahrain site. By 13 Oct, 80+ Yandex services (ride-hailing, payments, maps, AI APIs) had been disrupted, the company had declared an emergency operating mode and its shares had fallen about 4%.

    Why it matters: Data centres are now targets in war — the physical fragility behind the cloud.

    Source: Tom's Hardware / TASS [C]

    Changes (2)
    1. — Added the wider fallout: 80+ Yandex services disrupted, an emergency operating mode, and a ~4% share-price drop.
    2. — First filed.
  15. World Finland / South Korea / India Reported

    Three more gigawatt-scale plans — Finland, Korea, India — on paper only

    Sesterce plans a '€10bn' AI campus at a former Finnish paper mill (200MW first, then 600MW, aiming past 1GW); Sejong signed an MOU for a 360MW AI data centre (₩7tn through 2029); ReNew signed an MOU for a 750MW 'green' park near Mumbai. None shows financing, land, a grid deal or permits — all are announcements or MOUs.

    Why it matters: A headline number is not a built data centre: the gap between the press release and the energised site is the whole story.

    Source: TSN Media [C]

Watchlist — what lands next

WhatStateWhen
Data-centre National Policy Statement (NPS) Still unpublished; projects already being directed into the NSIP regime without it. Expected 'shortly after' the Jan 2026 regulations
Ofgem 'Curate' data-centre connection reform Consultation closed 17 Sep 2026; decision pending — commitment fee £237,500–£712,500/MW. Decision later in 2026
Scotland — hyperscale planning guidance Parliament agreed no decisions on hyperscale applications until guidance is published. Guidance expected by December 2026
Draft London Plan — data-centre policy GLE3 Consultation closed 15 October 2026; responses under consideration. Next draft / adoption pending
National Scheme of Delegation for planning functions (SI 2026/854) Standardises which applications go to officers vs committee; non-compliant committee decisions open to judicial review. In force 31 October 2026
EU data-centre standards and rating scheme Commission has adopted a data-centre sustainability rating scheme; consultation on minimum performance standards remains open. Consultation closes 14 December 2026
Environmental Audit Committee report (HC 22) Inquiry 'Risks and opportunities to the sustainability of data centres in the UK'; report + government response due. Awaiting publication
Three Rivers Local Plan examination Plan submitted; examination in H1 2027, adoption targeted Sep 2027. Submission 30 November 2026

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Fully sourced, no invented numbers

Every entry names its source and how it is known — verified, a designated claim, our calculation, or a gap. Where a claim is contested, we say so. See all reports & explainers →