AI capability & resilience · Compute · UK · 2025–2030
How much AI compute does Britain have, and what limits it?
Public AI compute was 21 AI ExaFLOPS in 2025, with a target of 420 by 2030. That is a public programme open to researchers and smaller firms by application — by its own account a small share of all UK compute. Growing it needs chips from abroad, power and grid connections.
Evidence last reviewed 11 October 2026
What exists, and who can use it
Capability ledger
Announced, installed and accessible are different stages
| Facility or programme | Stage | Operational | Published capacity (own unit) | Who can apply | Access terms | Evidence date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isambard-AI, University of Bristol (AIRR)BIST/UKRI, AI Research Resource (AIRR): advanced supercomputers for the UK | Accessible now | Fully running from July 2025 | 5,448 Nvidia GH200 superchips (hardware count, not a performance measure) | UK micro, small and medium organisations (Rapid Access, up to 20,000 GPU hours); academia, industry and other UK organisations (Gateway, up to 10,000 GPU hours) | Allocated by application through the AIRR portal; both routes open with no closing date. Charging terms not stated on the pages checked. | 28 September 2026 |
| Zenith, University of Cambridge (AIRR)BIST/UKRI, AI Research Resource (AIRR): advanced supercomputers for the UK | Accessible now | Listed as an AIRR access route; a £36m upgrade was announced in January 2026 | AMD-based system; published capacity not stated in a comparable unit | As for Isambard-AI (same AIRR routes) | As for Isambard-AI. The earlier Dawn system is now described in the past tense. | 28 September 2026 |
| National supercomputer, Edinburgh (separate from AIRR)DSIT, UK Compute Roadmap | Announced | Planned online in 2027 at EPCC, replacing ARCHER2; not delivered | Not yet specified | Not yet published | Up to £750m announced | UK Compute Roadmap, Action 1 |
| Heterogeneous AIRR supercomputer (Hardware Plan)DSIT, UK AI Hardware Plan | Announced | Announced June 2026; delivery not established by the plan | Mixed advanced compute technologies; no comparable delivered capacity given | Access terms not established by the plan | £750m programme, including £400m specialised-chip procurement opportunity; not two additive budgets | UK AI Hardware Plan, procurement section; does not identify this as Edinburgh |
| AIRR programme as a wholeDSIT, UK Compute Roadmap | Target | 21 AI ExaFLOPS in 2025; 420 targeted by 2030 | AI ExaFLOPS (the precision basis is not stated, so not comparable with vendor chip figures) | Eligible UK researchers and organisations | Part of a Compute Roadmap commitment of up to £2bn to 2030, of which over £1bn is AIRR | No official update on delivered capacity against the target found |
| Commercial cloud (Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google and others)CMA, Cloud services market investigation: final decision | Accessible now | Operating | Not published for the UK | Any customer able to pay | Commercial contracts. The CMA found egress fees and software licensing make switching harder; fewer than 1% of customers switch each year. | CMA final decision, 31 July 2025 |
Location is not control
Who owns the equipment, who allocates time on it, and who controls the software and licences can all differ from where a facility sits. For the public AIRR systems, ownership of the equipment is not set out in the pages checked. Ownership of commercial data centres varies by site and is not compiled in any official source. No official source measures how much UK compute is under UK operational control.
Funding commitments overlap — never add them up
The Compute Roadmap names up to £2bn overall to 2030, including over £1bn for AIRR, and up to £750m for the Edinburgh national supercomputer. These are commitments, not reported expenditure. The June 2026 Hardware Plan separately describes a £750m heterogeneous AIRR supercomputer, including a £400m specialised-chip procurement opportunity. It does not establish that this is the Edinburgh system: matching amounts are not evidence of project identity. The Hardware Plan’s £1.1bn+ headline combines public and private investment; its listed categories do not cleanly reconcile to that total. Do not add these overlapping envelopes or infer delivered capacity from announced funding.
Who is responsible now
The Compute Roadmap and AI Hardware Plan were published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. After the July 2026 machinery-of-government changes, the AI Research Resource and compute sit with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST, the renamed Department for Business and Trade), while AI strategy and public-sector AI adoption moved to the Cabinet Office.
Power: what data centres use, and what electricity costs
How much electricity do data centres use?
Data centres’ grid electricity use rose from 3.2 to 4.5 TWh between 2020 and 2024
DESNZ estimate of electricity consumed from the grid by data centres in Great Britain, terawatt-hours a year, 2020–2024. External-serving data centres with matched electricity meters.
Great Britain · 2020–2024 · Official Statistics in Development; estimate from meter matching
Show the workings — Data centres’ grid electricity use rose from 3.2 to 4.5 TWh between 2020 and 2024
- Geography:
- Great Britain — External-serving data centres with matched consuming meters; excludes internal enterprise facilities
- Measure:
- TWh a year
- Period:
- 2020–2024
- Status:
- Official Statistics in Development; estimate from meter matching
- Calculation:
- Annual workbook values; displayed to one decimal place. Percentage change uses unrounded values.
- Compare with:
- 2020
- Not included / breaks:
- Not all AI: data centres also run ordinary cloud, web and business services. Excludes on-site generation. Not comparable with NESO’s scenario figure in the next chart, which uses a different definition.
Source: DESNZ, Data centre electricity consumption in Great Britain, 2020 to 2024, Table_2, Great Britain (released 30 June 2026).
View the data as a table
| Year | TWh |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 3.2 |
| 2021 | 3.4 |
| 2022 | 3.8 |
| 2023 | 4.1 |
| 2024 | 4.5 |
How much might data-centre demand grow?
In one NESO scenario, data-centre demand reaches about 50 TWh by 2040
Great Britain electricity demand from data centres under NESO’s Holistic Transition scenario, TWh a year, 2024–2040. Dashed line: scenario projection.
Great Britain · 2024 (estimate) to 2040 (scenario) · Scenario projection by the system operator — not a forecast of one certain outcome
Show the workings — In one NESO scenario, data-centre demand reaches about 50 TWh by 2040
- Geography:
- Great Britain — Data centres, as defined in NESO’s Future Energy Scenarios
- Measure:
- TWh a year
- Period:
- 2024 (estimate) to 2040 (scenario)
- Status:
- Scenario projection by the system operator — not a forecast of one certain outcome
- Calculation:
- As published by NESO for the named scenario. Points are the years NESO publishes; the line between them is a guide, not data.
- Compare with:
- 2024 starting point, 7.6 TWh
- Not included / breaks:
- One of four NESO scenarios; the others give different paths. NESO’s 2024 starting figure uses a different definition from DESNZ’s meter-based estimate and is higher. Already included in total demand, not additional to it.
Source: NESO, Future Energy Scenarios 2025: Data Workbook, Holistic Transition, data centre demand (released 28 November 2025 (version 6)).
View the data as a table
| Year | TWh | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 7.6 | estimate |
| 2025 | 9.3 | scenario |
| 2030 | 22.8 | scenario |
| 2035 | 37.2 | scenario |
| 2040 | 49.7 | scenario |
What do medium-sized non-domestic users pay for electricity?
The UK had the highest price of these seven countries in 2025 H2
Non-domestic electricity price for users of 2,000–19,999 MWh a year, including taxes and levies but not VAT, pence per kWh, 2025 H2.
- United Kingdom25.1p
- Ireland19.1p
- Italy17.0p
- Germany16.7p
- Netherlands15.8p
- France10.6p
- Spain10.4p
UK and six EU countries · 2025 H2 · Official statistics
Show the workings — The UK had the highest price of these seven countries in 2025 H2
- Geography:
- UK and six EU countries — Non-domestic users in the Medium consumption band
- Measure:
- pence per kWh
- Period:
- 2025 H2
- Status:
- Official statistics
- Calculation:
- As published by DESNZ (converted to pence by DESNZ).
- Compare with:
- Six EU countries in the same band and period
- Not included / breaks:
- A large data centre uses far more than this band and usually buys power on negotiated contracts, so this is an indicator of the price environment, not a data-centre tariff. Household price caps are a different measure.
View the data as a table
| Country | 2025 H2, p/kWh |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 25.08 |
| Ireland | 19.05 |
| Italy | 16.97 |
| Germany | 16.74 |
| Netherlands | 15.78 |
| France | 10.56 |
| Spain | 10.38 |
Grid connections are covered in Britain’s grid queue, and industrial prices for very large users in Powering Britain.
Competing readings
Build at home. More domestic compute gives UK researchers and firms capacity that cannot be withdrawn by a foreign provider, and keeps sensitive work under UK law. This is the case for AIRR and the Hardware Plan.
Buy access, secure the terms. Most organisations will always use commercial cloud; resilience may come more cheaply from switching rights, contracts and oversight of critical providers than from building rival capacity.
The binding constraint may be elsewhere. Grid connection dates, power prices, chip supply and skills limit how fast any compute can be used productively. No source checked for this page establishes which binds most.
Options are compared on the main AI page.
Sources and methods (6)
- DSIT, UK Compute Roadmap, Action 1 (released 2025-07-01) — AIRR baseline, target and funding
- BIST/UKRI, AI Research Resource (AIRR): advanced supercomputers for the UK (released updated 28 September 2026) — facilities and access routes
- DESNZ, Data centre electricity consumption in Great Britain, 2020 to 2024, Table_2, Great Britain (released 30 June 2026) — data-centre electricity use
- NESO, Future Energy Scenarios 2025: Data Workbook, Holistic Transition, data centre demand (released 28 November 2025 (version 6)) — data-centre demand scenario
- DESNZ, International non-domestic energy prices, QEP Table 5.4.2 (Medium band, incl. taxes excl. VAT) — non-domestic electricity prices
- GOV.UK, Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (organisation page) (released created 20 July 2026) — current departmental responsibilities
Method notes
- Each facility keeps its own published unit; accelerator counts and ExaFLOPS figures are never summed or converted.
- DESNZ’s consumption estimate and NESO’s scenario use different definitions and are shown in separate charts.