Xlinks Pivots to £12 Billion AI Data Center Campus in Devon After UK Government Pulls Support for Morocco Power Cable
June 29, 2026
Xlinks Pivots to £12 Billion AI Data Center Campus in Devon After UK Government Pulls Support for Morocco Power Cable
The company behind a stalled plan to build a record-breaking undersea power cable from Morocco to the UK has shifted its focus to a massive data center development in Devon. Xlinks announced this week that it has submitted two planning proposals to Torridge District Council for a 1.5GW AI data center campus, named Valeon, and a 1.8GW on-site battery energy storage facility to support it. The total investment for the project is estimated at more than £12 billion ($16.4 billion).
Xlinks was originally founded in 2018 to spearhead the Morocco–UK Power Project, a 3.6GW high-voltage direct current interconnector designed to carry solar and wind-generated electricity from Morocco to the UK. The cable, which would have been the longest in the world at 2,500 miles, was planned to land at Alverdiscott in Devon. However, the UK government withdrew support for the project last year. While the previous Conservative administration had backed the initiative, the new Labour government deemed it “not in the UK national interest” and shifted focus toward homegrown energy solutions. Early investors in the cable project included Abu Dhabi energy firm TAQA, TotalEnergies, and Octopus Energy.
In response to the lost government backing, Xlinks said it would work to “unlock the potential of the project and maximize its value for all parties in a different way.” The new data center campus represents that pivot. Full details of the development have not yet been released, but a site render shows five buildings and an on-site substation. The company described the project as a “substantial opportunity for growth in the South West,” promising “significant economic investment, skilled employment, and clean energy infrastructure” for the region.
The shift from a transcontinental energy project to a local data center development highlights a broader trend in the industry: the growing demand for AI-driven computing power is reshaping where and how data centers are built. With AI workloads requiring massive amounts of electricity, developers are increasingly co-locating data centers with large-scale battery storage to ensure grid stability and energy reliability.
Public consultation on both proposals will run from July 14 to August 11. However, the plans have already faced local opposition. A Change.org petition against the data center proposal has gathered more than 2,250 signatures, and a GoFundMe page to fund the opposition campaign has raised £615 ($814.53). The petition argues that “North Devon is not an empty space waiting to be industrialised. It is a living landscape of farms, villages, wildlife and communities that have existed for generations.” It concludes: “We believe this proposal is entirely inappropriate for this location and should not proceed.”
Source: datacenterdynamics
