Microsoft ditches residency plans at UK's largest data center over power supply concerns
- Microsoft pulls out of the UK's largest data center project over concerns surrounding power supply
- The site was expected to be hooked up to the grid by 2027, but new estimates suggest it will not be operational until early 2030
- Microsoft was the site's only publicly announced customer
Microsoft has announced it will pull out of a project the UK government had previously dubbed the country’s largest AI data center.
A backlog of power capacity for UK data centers means the site would not be operational until the early 2030s, prompting Microsoft’s withdrawal from the project.
The development, announced in 2025 and headed by British company Nscale, was set to be built at a site in Loughton, Essex - but the project has been mired in controversy after it was revealed in March 2026 that the site was still operating as a scaffolding yard.
Nscale data center in...
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