Data centre firm warns UK must not miss opportunity to become AI ‘epicentre’

Latos is currently working towards building around 20 of its Neura Edge data centres across the country, with early-stage plans to potentially build sites in Leeds and Doncaster.

“The big message is that there's a window of opportunity here, so I think it needs to be a priority to make the UK the AI epicenter,” said Mr Wilcock, speaking to The Yorkshire Post.

“If we miss it, then it will be too late to wind it back.”

Mr Wilcock added that he believes the UK is at risk of letting big US tech firms dominate the UK market for data centres and AI, much in the way that such companies dominate the social media sector.

He said: “The big risk here is that we end up where we are with social media, where every social media platform is American, and every big player is American, so then when we make an announcement like a social media ban the Prime Minister has got to hope Trump doesn't mind.

“We need to be driving this faster, and it's businesses like us that are trying to.

“We're not getting funding, we're not getting grants. We're building speculatively, hoping they will come, so I don't think the country is going fast enough now.”

Mr Wilcock added, however, that he felt the UK should look to build its AI capabilities as a matter of pride, rather than out of fear of US dominance.

“You don't want to not trade with the US, they've got some great things, but this is an opportunity,” he said.

“I think Claude is amazing, but surely you want to be independent or interdependent, as opposed to dependent.

“I think the message should be more about ‘how do we want to look?’, rather than, ‘the big nasty Americans will bully us’.

“Wouldn’t it be a matter of pride to be the knowledge base for AI?”

Mr Wilcock’s words come after US President Donald Trump recently banned foreign access to AI giant Anthropic’s most powerful Claude AI models.

The US Government announced last month that it was restricting access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 Claude models over “national security concerns”.

Restrictions on Fable 5 were later lifted at the start of this month, but controls were kept in place for Mythos 5 – with access limited to US-based organisations approved by the US government.

Following the events, a group of MPs from the UK Government’s Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee warned that the UK risks being cut off from vital technology at the “whim” of leaders like Donald Trump.

The committee said that the Trump administration’s restrictions on Anthropic’s advanced AI models showed the UK “may not be able to count on even its allies for access to vital technology”.

Committee chairwoman, Dame Chi Onwurah, told the Press Association: “I hope the incoming administration will learn from the mistakes of its predecessors and move quickly to create a clear plan for how it will work internationally on science and technology.

“Without this, we risk falling even further behind in the global race for science and technology capability, undermining our economic prosperity and national security.”

The report was also critical of the Government’s approach to science diplomacy, adding that there had been a failure to ensure British start-ups are able to find funding to expand and stay in the UK.

Following the US restrictions, France’s domestic intelligence service also announced last month that it was ditching AI data tools from US tech firm Palantir.

French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in a post on social media: “We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools.”

The Prime Minister said that France must work to avoid “strategic dependency” and instead “build real autonomy” adding that the county must “not depend on the goodwill of certain partners”.

In September last year, Latos had plans approved for a £100m AI data centre on Teesside.

The company is currently working through planning processes in Manchester, with plans also progressing for a site in Carlisle.

Latos is building what it has named “Naura Edge” AI facilities, designed to fit into small spaces and run off lower amounts of power.

Mr Wilcock said: “What we're doing is we're building what we call Neura Edge AI facilities, which are quite different to data centres. Where data centres are effectively big warehouses that store data, and they are very power hungry.

"We need around 15 megawatt of power, not 500 or 300 which is often the case with a large facility, and what we plan to do is build these clusters so that eventually there's a loop between

them.”

Mr Wilcock added that Yorkshire is a “prime target” for the company in terms of where it hopes to build data centres.