何が起きたか
In the Autumn Budget 2026 (delivered 28 October 2026), Chancellor John Healey announced the 'British Data Centre Covenant', which makes priority grid connections and (where necessary) permission for on-site generation conditional on five mandatory tests for strategic data centres: paying a fair share of energy costs; agreeing Local Benefit Plans with local investment; achieving Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.3 or better with closed-loop/minimal public water use; creating local jobs/apprenticeships and contributing to UK AI hardware development; and providing secure compute access to NHS/public services while meeting enhanced cyber-resilience standards (plus annual energy/water reporting and UK supplier preference). A new Ministerial Control Centre chaired by the Minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, will accelerate planning and grid connections. The wider AI package added £500m for AI safety and security, £140m for the sovereign AI unit, an AI Challenge Prize, £18m for advanced chip design and £6m for Glasgow. UK-wide capacity target is 6GW of AI data-centre capacity by 2030.
なぜ重要か
Grid connection — not planning consent — is the binding constraint on AI data-centre buildout, and the covenant makes accelerated grid access conditional on community, energy, water, and public-service-security commitments. This directly shapes where and how AI compute infrastructure (and therefore sovereign AI capability) can be built in the UK, and imposes meaningful obligations on operators (energy/water transparency, NHS/public-service compute access, cyber resilience, UK supply-chain preference).
必要な対応
Data-centre developers and operators seeking priority grid connections in England should prepare to evidence the five covenant tests (PUE, water closed-loop, local benefit plans, job/apprenticeship investments, NHS/public-sector compute access, cyber-resilience), and await the 'strategic' project definition and provision of the new Planning and Infrastructure Act powers.