Renewable Energy Positions Scotland as Unique Base for UK’s National AI Ambitions
Scotland's ready availability of renewable energy was a deciding factor in CoreWeave's plans to invest a further £1.5 billion into their UK AI capacity.
Speaking with Bloomberg Radio, Mike Mattacola, General Manager for International at CoreWeave, explained the details of their recent announcement to invest £1.5 billion in the UK, with a key part of this being their plans to invest in Scotland.
From 0m:50s he says the uniqueness of Scotland relevant to their ambitions is the local availability of renewable energy, which can greatly reduce their costs.
CoreWeave, which supplies data center capacity to companies like OpenAI, is bringing the latest Nvidia AI chips to form the core of the backbone to power the UK’s AI boom.
Scotland: A Global Leader for ‘Green AI’
A significant portion of the new investment targets Scotland, where CoreWeave is partnering with DataVita, a Glasgow-headquartered provider of sustainable data center solutions.
The collaboration will establish an advanced AI data center at DataVita’s campus in North Lanarkshire, featuring NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs (including GB300 models). This is described as one of the largest technology investments in Scottish history and one of the UK’s most carbon-efficient AI deployments.
The Scottish facility will be powered entirely by renewable energy, leveraging Scotland’s abundant green resources, cool climate, and DataVita’s closed-loop cooling technology to minimize water usage. CoreWeave emphasized that this setup positions Scotland as a “hub for the UK’s AI ambitions,” supporting low-environmental-impact, high-performance computing.
The project is expected to create high-skilled jobs in engineering, operations, and AI innovation, while fostering startups and economic development in Scotland and the wider UK. CoreWeave’s CEO, Michael Intrator, stated: “Our investment in the UK will… unlock new opportunities for innovation, economic growth, and scientific discovery.”
DataVita’s MD Managing Director Danny Quinn calling it a “landmark moment for the UK’s technology and sustainability goals”, and set the scene for this a few months back. Speaking with the DCS podcast Danny Quinn discusses how DataVita is charging ahead with a new focus on being Scotland’s leading provider of AI-ready data centres and launching the National Cloud, delivering tailored services for workloads prioritising data sovereignty.
