Scotland's AI Growth Zone, delivered by data centre company DataVita around its Airdrie site in partnership with AI cloud firm CoreWeave. Government states £8.2 billion of private investment is committed, supporting more than 3,400 jobs and including a renewables park alongside the data centres.
Investment
- Stated investment
- £8.2bn
- Lead organisations
- DataVita, in partnership with CoreWeave
- Announced
- 29 January 2026
- Target live
- Not published
Power and grid
- Published capacity
- 500 MW
- Power notes
- DataVita states a total capacity of 500 MW for its Lanarkshire campus, and separately more than 1 GW of private-wire renewable generation, which is generation rather than demand and is not a data-centre load figure. The 500 MW is an operator claim for an area-wide programme, not a consented facility figure, and does not appear in the UK Government designation statement of 29 January 2026. It is excluded from every total.
- Grid connection
- Not published
- Cooling and water
- Not published
Planning
- Planning authority
- Not published
- Planning reference
- Not published
- Current status
- Approved
- Floor area
- Not published
Evidence quality
- Confidence
- High confidence
- AI relevance
- High — AI/compute led
- Verified
- Yes
- Last updated
- 8 October 2026
AI use
- Tenant or end user
- CoreWeave (DataVita campus, 15-year lease)
- AI compute
- CoreWeave NVIDIA GPU deployment; CoreWeave committing £1.5bn to the zone (government).
Benefits vs drawbacks
Benefits
Member projects
- DataVita DV3, Chapelhall
Chapelhall · Under construction · CoreWeave (15-year lease, per DatacenterDynamics)
- DataVita DV4, Chapelhall
Chapelhall · Proposed
Timeline
Progress
Announced · 29 January 2026
Zone announced by government
More than 3,400 jobs and targeted support for local communities to help tackle the cost of living as Lanarkshire named latest AI Growth Zonedesignation · 29 January 2026
Designated fifth AI Growth Zone
DataVita, in partnership with CoreWeave, to deliver a 9,000-acre site; up to 500MW of compute; £8.2bn private investment; £540m additional community fund over 15 years.
More than 3,400 jobs and targeted support for local communities... as Lanarkshire named latest AI Growth Zone
Key facts as published
- Private investment committed
- £8.2 billion
- Jobs
- More than 3,400, including around 800 high-paying AI roles
- Community fund
- Up to £543 million over 15 years (GOV.UK)
- On-site energy
- Renewables park planned alongside data centres
- Aug 2026 financing
- £300m debt facility (GOV.UK, 18 Aug 2026) funding expansion of the existing DataVita DV1 datacentre and construction of a new DV3 building at Chapelhall -- see the DataVita DV3 record
- Dell Technologies
- Dell Technologies established a Scottish base at Mercury House on the AI Innovation Park, announced alongside the £300m financing (GOV.UK, 18 Aug 2026)
Sources
- More than 3,400 jobs and targeted support for local communities to help tackle the cost of living as Lanarkshire named latest AI Growth Zone — DSIT / Scotland Office (GOV.UK), 29 January 2026 (updated 3 February 2026)
- Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone secures £300 million investment as Dell establishes Scottish base — Cabinet Office / DSIT (GOV.UK), 18 August 2026
- DataVita blog: funding secured for data centre expansion — DataVita
Where this connects
- Tracker entry for Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone — the same record inside the UK data-centre tracker.
- All tracked projects in Scotland
- UK AI Energy Index — the indicators we track for AI-driven electricity demand.
- AI growth zone impact calculator — model the electricity implications of a zone of a given size.