{"id":806958,"date":"2026-10-18T22:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806958\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T22:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:06:15","slug":"microsoft-pulls-out-of-nscales-essex-ai-data-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806958\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft pulls out of Nscale&#8217;s Essex AI data centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A tech company has said it still plans to build the UK&#8217;s largest AI data centre despite Microsoft pulling out of the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nscale announced last year it had pledged \u00a32bn to build and open a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c79vq1453r7o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pioneering facility in Loughton<\/a>, Essex.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the BBC understands that Microsoft, which said it would fund a supercomputer at the site, has terminated its involvement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A spokesperson for Nscale said it was exploring alternative power sources and its relationship with Microsoft remained strong for their other projects together overseas. Microsoft declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We remain committed to both the Loughton project and the UK and we are exploring alternative power sources for the site, in addition to other expansion sites in the UK,&#8221; Nscale said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long-term.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tech company has said it still plans to build the UK&#8217;s largest AI data centre despite Microsoft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-806958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}