How AI threatens the UK’s climate goals – Behind The Investigation | BBC News

Could the UK’s push to become an AI superpower put its 2050 net zero target at risk?

The UK government wants to rapidly expand the number of AI data centres being built across the country, but a BBC File on 4 Investigates report has found this rapid growth could severely affect the government’s own net zero climate goals.

Plans for some of the biggest sites include proposals for on-site gas power stations to feed the energy-hungry data centres. This is because developers cannot immediately connect to the national grid – with potential waits of up to 10 years.

BBC calculations suggest that if four of these gas-fuelled mega data centres ran at full capacity all year, they could produce more carbon emissions than Manchester, Liverpool and Southampton combined.

In this episode of BBC News Behind the Investigation, Melanie Stewart-Smith talks to reporter Adrian Goldberg about the scale of the proposed new data centre sites, concerns over their potential water and energy consumption, and why developers want access to more energy than the UK’s national grid can currently provide.

The government said data centres were “essential to Britain’s economy” and that its new Data Centre Covenant set clear expectations for developers to pay a fair share of the costs they impose on the energy system and deliver benefits for local communities.

For more on this story, search for File on 4 Investigates on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:00 Could AI threaten the UK’s net zero target?
1:03 What are data centres?
2:10 Why AI data centres are controversial
3:38 The scale of the proposed sites
4:41 Why data centres need so much water
6:01 Microsoft’s Leeds site and local concerns
7:01 Pressure on the national grid
8:34 Data centres turning to gas power
9:48 What net zero means
10:28 The government’s data centre covenant
12:27 What the industry is doing about renewables
14:23 Is there hope for a greener path?
16:46 Outro

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