Yorkshire can be an AI power - but UK needs to follow China's approach to electricity demand: David Richards

Developers have already announced between 500 and 900 megawatts of new UK data centres needing power in the next few years. One operator is pursuing a full gigawatt of dedicated AI capacity within 36 months. National Grid is processing up to 19 gigawatts of connection requests from data centre operators by 2031. Nineteen gigawatts equals the demand of more than 14 million homes. This is a new industrial sector landing on the grid in a single decade.

History shows what happens next. The first industrial revolution demanded new coal mines, canals and steam power. The spread of electricity in the late 19th century required new power stations and the creation of the national grid. AI will demand its own infrastructure revolution. Data centres are the mills of the 21st century and they run not on water or coal but on relentless, round-the-clock electricity.

Without new generation, the data centres stay dark and Britain’s AI ambition becomes an empty slogan.

We do not have to imagine what failure looks like. It is happening already. In California, two brand new data centres stand idle because the local utility cannot supply power.

Microsoft has warehouses of GPUs it cannot switch on. GPUs, or graphics processing units, are the specialised chips that power AI systems. They are extraordinarily powerful and extraordinarily power hungry. Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella admitted in November: “You may actually have a bunch of chips sitting in inventory that I cannot plug in.”

The richest companies in the world are being outpaced by the electricity grid.

While the West stumbles, China accelerates. Nvidia’s founder Jensen Huang delivered a warning that should shake every Western policymaker. He said China is positioned to win the global AI race because it has cheap energy, looser regulation and a political system focused on building rather than arguing. Though he later softened his language, calling China “nanoseconds behind America,” his core message was clear: energy determines leadership.

While the United States debates rules and imposes restrictions, China is scaling at full speed. Provinces are adding nuclear, hydro and coal baseload at a pace Western governments would never attempt. Huang was direct about export bans. They are not slowing China down. They are pushing it to build its own fully independent AI ecosystem. Chinese AI models from DeepSeek, Alibaba and Tencent are already world class. Blocking chips will not halt their advance. It will only weaken Western influence. The answer is simple. Out innovate. Out build. Win developers globally. Stop believing that bureaucracy can defeat physics.

Britain faces exactly the same choice. Politics cannot get in the way of power.

This is why Yorkshire has a rare strategic opportunity. At the recent Digital Forge Summit, Richard Caborn argued that South Yorkshire must anchor Britain’s clean power future by becoming the manufacturing base for Small Modular Reactors.

SMRs are factory-built, installed quickly and deliver dependable baseload power, the kind AI infrastructure cannot survive without. The proposed National SMR Manufacturing Centre of Excellence already has more than 50 industrial partners and two private customers ready to order four British-built reactors. No other UK proposal is that advanced.

The first reactor is decisive. Build it overseas, and the supply chain goes overseas. Build it in Yorkshire and Britain captures the expertise, the exports and the energy backbone of the AI age.

AI will not be constrained by ideas. It will be constrained by electricity. China understands this. The United States is waking up to it. Now Britain must decide whether it intends to be a leader or a spectator.

If we are serious about becoming an AI power, we must start with real power. Yorkshire is ready. The government must not waste this chance.

David Richards is managing partner of Yorkshire AI Labs