UK Chancellor states the country will not adopt US-style laissez-faire for data centers

According to a report from IT Home citing Bloomberg, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey told the Treasury Select Committee on November 11 that the United Kingdom will not adopt a freewheeling, US-style approach to regulating data centers, stating explicitly that he does not want to see the American data center debate repeated on British soil.

Healey explained that the relatively light-touch oversight of data center projects in the US, combined with insufficient water and electricity infrastructure capacity, has drawn strong opposition from both the public and political circles, and has started to hinder investment in AI in turn. He added that he is prepared to say no to data center projects that do not deliver tangible benefits to local communities, and stressed the importance of sovereign AI infrastructure for the country's resilience and independence.

On the target side, the UK plans to reach 6GW of computing capacity by 2030, a level three times the current figure, in support of sovereign AI development. At this stage, these remarks remain at the level of policy statements, and no detailed implementation measures have been made public yet.