It could apply to all datacentre projects that have not yet received planning permission \u2013 although its exact implementation is up to the Scottish government to decide.<\/p>\n
Lesley Backhouse, a local councillor from one of the constituencies that put forward the motion, said that Scotland\u2019s current datacentre plans amounted to \u201coverdevelopment\u201d and were \u201cintrusive and not keeping with the local environment\u201d.<\/p>\n
The move emerged as the Guardian on Monday revealed how the developer and the UK government misrepresented the technical feasibility of a massive datacentre hub<\/a> in Scotland in the face of community fears that their land would be subsumed by the development, and promised jobs and investments would never materialise.<\/p>\n This site, in Lanarkshire, was to be an \u201cAI growth zone\u201d, a key element of the government\u2019s strategy to build national AI infrastructure in rural areas of Britain.<\/p>\n The SNP\u2019s resolution came amid signs of a wider upheaval in the UK\u2019s AI strategy as Andy Burnham prepares to replace Keir Starmer in Downing Street. He is reportedly considering a review of several critical planks of Starmer\u2019s technology policy.<\/p>\n The Guardian previously reported that an \u201cAI growth zone\u201d in North Tyneside was more of a publicity stunt than a viable project<\/a>, despite being supposedly backed by the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI. Several other big UK AI projects have been found to be \u201cphantom investments\u201d<\/a> after the government failed to audit investment numbers or jobs claims.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is arguing that we should not have any datacentres in the UK or Scotland,\u201d said Graham Simpson, a member of the Scottish parliament representing North Lanarkshire.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there needs to be a proper piece of work at the government level to decide how many the country needs and what is our capacity for them, in terms of our resources.\u201d<\/p>\n A moratorium on datacentres in Scotland could strike at the heart of the UK\u2019s wider AI strategy. British officials have pushed Scotland as the prime location for datacentres due to its access to plentiful renewable energy. The SNP\u2019s resolution could halt projects such as the Lanarkshire AI growth zone.<\/p>\n The SNP resolution suggests that the number of massive datacentres planned in Scotland could overwhelm its renewables capacity.<\/p>\n It says there are 24 \u201chyperscale\u201d datacentre projects in various stages of planning in Scotland. Combined, they would use more than one-and-a-half times the power Scotland uses at peak demand.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is extreme overdevelopment. I\u2019m very supportive of the local community and their endeavours to prevent this from happening,\u201d said Backhouse.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the chair of the Commons science and technology select committee, Chi Onwurah, on Monday criticised the UK\u2019s broader AI investment strategy, saying that without a proper plan for achieving sovereignty it has been \u201cvery opportunistic\u201d.<\/p>\n
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