UK government reveals massive gap in AI datacenter energy plans—one department says 6GW by 2030, the other says less than 0.6GW

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) committed to building AI datacentres requiring 6GW of electricity by 2030 as part of its UK compute roadmap, but the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)—responsible for UK carbon budgets—forecast only 528MW of total energy growth across the entire commercial services sector in the same period. After the Guardian requested comment, DSIT revised its carbon emission estimates more than 100-fold, from 0.025–0.142 million tonnes CO₂ to 34–123 million tonnes CO₂ over 10 years.

The discrepancy exposes a fundamental planning failure: DESNZ told researchers it does not hold separate projections for AI datacentre growth and folded them into broader sector forecasts, while DSIT's growth zones would each require roughly 500MW of power—nearly equivalent to DESNZ's entire projected sector growth. This means the government's climate targets and AI growth plans are being built on incompatible assumptions about energy demand.

For businesses and investors planning UK expansion, this confusion creates real uncertainty about whether datacentre projects will actually be greenlit and whether power will be available. For UK citizens, it suggests the government has not credibly integrated AI infrastructure into its legally binding carbon budget 7, due this summer—raising the risk that either climate targets will slip or AI investment plans will be scaled back once the gap is publicly acknowledged.