Britain's AI boom might be endangering the nation's climate goals.
As the U.K. adds data centers across the country, at least 100 of them are planning to burn gas to power the notoriously energy-intensive facilities, per The Guardian.
Silvia Simon, a researcher at Future Energy Networks, which represents the U.K. gas industry lobby, told The Guardian that "Gas networks are seeing a lot of interest from data center developers looking to secure a gas connection. Not just for resilience, but for primary supply."
Simon added that Future Energy Networks has gotten over 100 requests for the aforementioned gas connections. In total, these connections would represent nearly 15 terawatt hours of energy annually.
That prospect is prompting concern across Britain's energy system. Julian Leslie, strategic planning director at the National Energy System Operator, explained to The Guardian that the expansion would create a problem for the country's climate targets.
Leslie stated: "The target was to get less than 5% of unabated gas supplying electricity in the system. But, obviously, if we've got data centers not connected to electricity but powered by unabated gas then it does raise an interesting question about what that means for the Clean Power 2030 target."
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Using more gas to power data centers would raise levels of heat-trapping pollution at a time when countries are supposed to be moving away from fossil fuels. If short-term use becomes long-term infrastructure, it could lock in pollution for decades and slow the shift to cleaner electricity.
When major new facilities cannot connect to a clean grid, they can end up competing for fuel, land, and network capacity. That can add strain to energy systems and may contribute to higher costs for households and businesses.
The U.K. is not alone in this dilemma. In the United States, some AI-linked data center projects have also turned to gas-fired generation, drawing criticism over pollution and public health risks.
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