Data Centre Watch Updated 24 October 2026, 13:03 UTC
Data Centre Watch
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.
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 →
Latest
44 entries matching · showing 31–44
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Data-centre fires and power failures have doubled since 2024
The Energy Incident Register counts 8 electrical fires/power failures at data centres in 2024, 20 in 2025 and 19 already in 2026 — nearly half of its 93 incidents since 2010 clustering in the last three years. UPS and battery rooms (22) and backup generators (15) are the most common named failure points.
Why it matters: The build-out's physical fragility: more power density and compressed commissioning schedules, failing most often in the power gear.
Source: Energy Incident Register / DCD [C]
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Broadcom, Apollo and Blackstone launch a $35bn AI-infrastructure venture
Broadcom and the asset managers Apollo and Blackstone have formed a $35bn partnership to expand advanced AI computing capacity — another sign of the capital now chasing data-centre build-out.
Why it matters: The money is getting bigger and more financialised — the financing side of the boom, again.
Source: CNNBC [C]
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US: about half of 2026's planned data-centre capacity delayed or cancelled
Analysts put roughly half of the ~12GW of US data-centre capacity planned for 2026 as delayed or cancelled, with PJM wholesale prices up ~76% year on year and ~2,061GW stuck in interconnection queues. Local opposition has hardened: 379+ US jurisdictions now have moratoriums or bans, with ~$68bn of development stalled.
Why it matters: The binding constraint is now power and permits — and the backlash has become a nationwide planning fact.
Source: Achilles / inprofile [C]
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Nvidia forms an alliance to build a 'power-flexible' AI data centre
Nvidia has assembled partners into an alliance to build an AI data centre designed to flex its power consumption rather than demand a fixed maximum feed — a move upstream into the electricity bottleneck that gates its own accelerator market. Partners, capacity and timeline were not disclosed.
Why it matters: The chipmaker is now organising around power, not just silicon — because that's what caps how many chips can run.
Source: Die Signal / Yahoo Finance [C]
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Nvidia plans Israel's largest server farm ($1.5bn, 64MW)
Nvidia is set to lease a 30,000 m² facility near Yokneam for a 64MW Blackwell-powered site, part of a push making Israel its second-largest R&D hub outside the US.
Why it matters: The chipmaker moving further into owning the buildings, not just the chips.
Source: G&B Daily News [C]
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AMD and Anthropic plan up to 2GW of MI450 compute
A strategic partnership to deploy up to 2GW of AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs in Helios rackscale systems, with the first gigawatt from H1 2027 — a challenge to Nvidia's lock on AI capacity.
Why it matters: Compute supply is diversifying, but every gigawatt still lands on the same grid.
Source: DailySynapse [C]
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Nvidia reported to take a 1GW Texas data-centre lease
Nvidia is reported as the tenant behind a lease worth up to $50.2bn at Hut 8's one-gigawatt Beacon Point campus — using its balance sheet to underwrite the project. Neither company has confirmed the tenant.
Why it matters: A chipmaker now financing, not just supplying, the buildings — and it revives the 'circular AI financing' question.
Source: Paris Times [C]
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Entergy warns AWS of peak-time disconnections in Mississippi
Entergy Mississippi told AWS its Jackson-area data centres could be disconnected at peak demand — reported as the first formal interruptible-service notice to a hyperscaler. AWS built 'Project Falcon', an automated switch from grid to backup generation, in response.
Why it matters: The grid can't always carry the load — even for the largest operators, on the hottest days.
Source: TokenPost [C]
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India's grid strains as AI data-centre demand surges
Regional power committees are weighing data-centre load, upgrade costs and the risk of 'abrupt load rejection' as operators bulk-buy electricity; transmission upgrades are running into cost and right-of-way delays.
Why it matters: The same grid-and-water squeeze as the UK, arriving at gigawatt scale in a different system.
Source: The Hindu [C]
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Oracle trucks in gas to keep data centres on schedule
With pipelines delayed, Oracle has compressed natural gas delivered by truck: it kept a Salt Lake City-area site running for over a year, is doing the same at its OpenAI campus in Shackelford County, Texas, and is weighing it for the 2.45GW Project Jupiter in New Mexico — where it has already sent a force-majeure notice.
Why it matters: When the grid and the pipes can't reach the site, the fuel arrives by road — the lengths the build-out will go to.
Source: Bloomberg via Quartz / DCD [C]
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Local opposition has cancelled $260bn of US data centres this year
Heatmap Pro counts at least $260bn of US data-centre investment cancelled in 2026 after sustained local opposition — about $130bn of it in the three months to 30 September alone, more than in the whole of last year. Roughly $1trn of projects now face organised opposition, and about half of the projects that met backlash this year were ultimately dropped.
Why it matters: The backlash is not noise — it is now a measurable brake on the build-out, the clearest evidence that the local fight works.
Source: Heatmap Pro [C]
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Google backs 890MW of nuclear uprates in PJM
A 20-year PPA with Constellation funds $4.3bn of upgrades at 11 reactors across Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, adding 890MW by 2032 — a week after Amazon's 690MW Calvert Cliffs deal.
Why it matters: Hyperscalers buying nuclear to escape the curtailment queue — off-grid power as the new moat.
Source: Digital News USA [V]
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Morgan Stanley: a 32GW US power shortfall by 2028
A 34% net gap between US data-centre demand and supply through 2028, even after counting on-site gas and fuel cells. Nvidia and Broadcom are insulated; memory and optics suppliers are exposed.
Why it matters: The bottleneck is power, not chips — the same constraint shaping every UK scheme.
Source: TechFastForward / Reuters [C]
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Nvidia starts qualifying power and cooling gear
Nvidia's new 'DSX Ready' programme sets qualification requirements for battery storage and liquid-cooling products (Hitachi Energy, LG, Tesla, Vertiv, LiquidStack), tying infrastructure to its AI-factory reference designs.
Why it matters: The chip vendor is moving into the power and cooling stack — and standardising what a data centre must be.
Source: Data Center Frontier [V]
Watchlist — what lands next
| What | State | When |
|---|---|---|
| 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 →