BROOKFIELD, QAI AND DRAX PLAN £20BN DATA CENTRE AT DRAX POWER STATION

Brookfield, Qatar's Qai, Drax and UK compute platform Radiant will develop a data centre platform at Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire worth up to £20bn. An initial £2.5bn will fund a 100-megawatt first phase, due online in the first quarter of 2028. Capacity is expected to reach 500 megawatts by 2031, with further expansion planned afterwards across the 1,000-acre site. Brookfield is providing capital through its 2025 joint venture with Qai, while Drax supplies land, power and grid access. Drax chief executive Will Gardiner said the site "is one of the few UK sites that can provide large-scale reliable power directly to data centre customers."

Drax Power Station has a 4-gigawatt grid connection. The first phase still requires planning and regulatory approval from the government. Brookfield's head of AI infrastructure, Sikander Rashid, said the firm's capital would "help accelerate the construction of a critical piece of sovereign AI, delivered by Radiant." Radiant chief executive Mahdi Yahya said the project would give "British researchers, startups and enterprises access to frontier compute at home."

The deal follows the government's Autumn Budget, which introduced a Data Centre Covenant offering faster power and planning for strategically important projects that deliver local jobs and training. Gardiner said the project could become "one of the largest data centres in the UK" if built in full. Emma Reynolds, chief secretary to the Treasury, said Britain "must seize the opportunities of AI in a way that defends our national interest and ensures working people benefit." Yahya said Drax "has powered Britain for more than 50 years" and that the partnership could "power its AI economy for the next 50."