Brookfield plans £20bn AI data centre at Drax power station
Brookfield and Radiant plan a data centre campus worth more than £20 billion at Drax Power Station, using a 4 gigawatt grid connection that already exists. The first 100 megawatts costs £2.5 billion and still needs approvals and a tenant.
WIRE · AI DATA CENTERS · UK · Announced 3 Nov 2026 (UK)
Drax, the owner of Britain's biggest power station, has signed up Brookfield and its AI cloud arm Radiant to build a data centre campus on the Drax estate in North Yorkshire. Brookfield puts the full build at more than £20 billion, about $26.8 billion, including the chips, with £2.5 billion for a first phase of up to 100 megawatts from early 2028. On the AI Data Centers layer, this is a deal about the scarcest thing in Britain's data centre market: a grid connection that already exists. The catch is in the small print. The first phase still needs planning and grid approvals, and it does not have a tenant.
What happened
The site
1,000 acres with 4 gigawatts of grid access and 2.6 gigawatts of working generation
Drax supplies the land and the existing grid connection. It hopes to power the campus directly from its own plant by the early 2030s
The phases
Up to 100 MW from Q1 2028, up to 500 MW by 2031, then more than 1 GW
Phase one runs on power drawn from the grid and targets commercial customers
The money
More than £20 billion in total, £2.5 billion for phase one
Backed by Brookfield's AI infrastructure joint venture with Qai, Qatar's AI investment arm. No final investment decision has been taken
The conditions
Planning, regulatory and network approvals, plus a suitable tenant
Community consultation starts shortly; Drax aims to begin the planning process in the coming months. Drax shares rose almost 9% on the day
Why cash cares
In Britain the hard part of a data centre is not the building. It is the wait for a grid connection, which can run for years. That is why this deal is worth more to Drax than the land. The estate already holds 4 gigawatts of grid access, against 2.6 gigawatts of generation still running, a gap of about 1.4 gigawatts on our arithmetic. A connection that exists today is the one input a data centre developer cannot simply buy.
The timing matters for Drax's own cash. The Guardian reports that the government has cut Drax to about half of its current support of roughly £2 million a day for 2027 to 2031. On our arithmetic, that is around £365 million a year less than today. A data centre that pays for land, connection and, later, power directly from the plant is a way to replace part of that income. Drax's market value rose almost 9% to close to £3 billion on the news. The full project Brookfield describes is more than six times that.
The first phase is expensive. £2.5 billion for up to 100 megawatts works out at about £25 million per megawatt on our arithmetic, a figure that includes the chips, since Brookfield's total covers semiconductors. Most of that money goes to the people who sell servers and accelerators, not to the owner of the land.
Figure: 100 megawatts first, against a 4 gigawatt connection. Phases, grid access and costs from Drax's 3 November release; per-megawatt cost and shares are our arithmetic.
The step that is still open
The tenant. Drax says progress on the first phase depends on planning, regulatory and network approvals from the government and the system operator, and on "securing a suitable tenant". No final investment decision has been made. Radiant is Brookfield's own compute platform, so it can build and run the halls, but someone still has to sign up to use them.
That is not a small condition in Britain right now. CNBC notes reports in October that Microsoft walked away from anchoring an Nscale data centre near London because of delays connecting it to the grid. Drax is selling the opposite: a site where the connection is already in place. Until a customer signs, though, the £20 billion is a plan, not an order book.
There is a second open step further out. Phase one runs on grid power. Drax wants to supply the campus directly from its own plant, and the Guardian reports that it hopes to clear the approvals for that before 2031. How that power is sold and priced is not yet known.
The second-order read
Who gets paid. Drax first, for land and an existing grid connection, with the chance to sell power directly later. Then the builders and the electrical contractors who fit out the halls, and the chip and server makers who take most of the £25 million per megawatt.
Who waits. Brookfield and Radiant, until a tenant signs and the approvals come through. Phase two and beyond wait on phase one.
Who pays. Whoever becomes the tenant, and Brookfield's joint venture with Qai, which is putting up the capital.
Stuck step. The signature. The site and the connection exist. A customer does not yet.
Three cautions
These are plans, not commitments. Brookfield's £20 billion is an estimate of what the full development could cost, and every phase after the first is described as an ambition.
The 1.4 gigawatt gap between grid access and working generation is our arithmetic. It does not mean all of that capacity is free for a data centre; the grid operator still has to approve how it is used.
The support figures come from press reports, not from Drax's release. Drax has not said how much the data centre will pay it.
What to watch
- A tenant: any named customer for phase one, and on what terms.
- Planning and the grid: the start of the formal planning process, and network approval from the system operator.
- Direct power: whether Drax wins approval to supply the campus from its own plant before 2031.
- The final investment decision: whether the £2.5 billion first phase is committed in time to open in early 2028.
Read: the AI Data Centers layer and data center power distribution explained
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Not investment advice. Do your own research. The 1.4 gigawatt gap, the £365 million a year, the six times comparison and the £25 million per megawatt are our arithmetic.
References
- Drax Group, "Drax, Brookfield, Radiant and Qai announce £20bn partnership to deliver GW-scale data centre capacity at Drax Power Station", 3 Nov 2026. Phases, costs, site and conditions.
- CNBC, "Brookfield plans $27 billion AI data center at power station; Drax rises 8%", 3 Nov 2026. Dollar conversion, final investment decision, Nscale and Microsoft report.
- The Guardian, "UK's most polluting power plant could power country's largest AI datacentre", 3 Nov 2026. Direct power plans, support cut, market value.
