October 27, 2025
The United Kingdom's first sovereign artificial intelligence data centre, entirely powered by on-site renewable energy, is set to be constructed in Scotland. The landmark facility aims to merge high-performance computing with environmental sustainability while ensuring sensitive data remains within UK borders.
The development will be jointly delivered by Argyll Data Development (Argyll) and AI computing company SambaNova Systems. It will be located within the Killellan AI Growth Zone, a 184-acre site on the Cowal peninsula.
The data centre is designed as a sovereign facility, meaning it will keep data within the UK's jurisdiction to enhance security and ensure compliance with local laws and regulations. Its power will be drawn from an on-site, closed-circuit system utilizing wind, solar, and wave energy. This renewable energy will power the graphics processing units (GPUs) that run an AI inference cloud.
AI inference is the energy-intensive process of using a trained AI model, such as a chatbot, to answer questions or perform tasks. A recent Google study highlighted the significant energy demands, noting that the per-prompt energy impact of using a chatbot is equivalent to watching television for approximately nine seconds.
Peter Griffiths, Executive Chairman at Argyll, stated that the project demonstrates that sustainability and scale can coexist. "Our goal isn’t just to make AI greener, but to make it competitive, compliant and cost-effective," Griffiths said. "This project gives UK enterprises the ability to innovate responsibly, securely and within our own borders, in full alignment with national AI ambitions."
The initiative aligns with broader UK government efforts to bolster domestic AI capabilities and data security. This includes a recently announced partnership with OpenAI that will enable businesses to store their data on UK-based servers for the first time, a move intended to alleviate data privacy concerns and spur wider AI adoption across the economy.
According to Argyll, the wider Killellan AI Growth Zone has the potential to generate £15 billion in total investment, create over 2,000 construction jobs annually, and contribute £734 million each year to the Scottish economy.
The facility will utilize SambaNova's air-cooled GPU systems, which do not rely on liquid cooling and draw roughly one-tenth of the energy required by a traditional GPU rack. Furthermore, waste heat from the centre will be repurposed to support local projects such as vertical farming and aquaculture.
The initial phase of the project will provide between 100 and 600 megawatts of capacity, with plans to eventually scale to over two gigawatts. A private-wire renewable energy network, coupled with vanadium-flow battery storage—a technology that stores excess energy in liquid electrolytes—will create a self-sufficient power system for the operation.
Rodrigo Liang, CEO and co-founder of SambaNova, described the project as a blueprint for responsible AI expansion. "By pairing renewable power with high-performance, energy-efficient computing," Liang said, "it shows what sustainable AI infrastructure can achieve."
SOURCE holyrood
