London still dominates Britain's datacenter map, but the regions are powering up
- ID
- 12619
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 10 Aug 2026, 5:15 PM
- Fetched
- 10 Aug 2026, 6:10 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/08/10/london-still-dominates-britains-datacenter-map-but-the-regions-are-powering-up/5284693
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 2.5
- Created
- 10 Aug 2026, 6:10 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developerssaas_founders
What happened
A UK datacenter analysis by Karas Plating counts 555 UK server farms totaling ~1.6 GW IT capacity, with London holding 219 facilities (~40%) and ~1,048 MW (~two-thirds) of colocation capacity. Regional growth is accelerating due to London power shortages and planning constraints, with South East England having 10 planned developments and North West England having 5.
Why it matters
Minimal direct impact for Malaysian builders. The only transferable lesson is the pattern of datacenter concentration causing power and planning bottlenecks that push growth to secondary regions—a dynamic relevant if evaluating where to deploy cloud or colocation capacity in SEA markets with similar capital-vs-region tensions.
Discussion angle
Brief mention only: whether Malaysia's datacenter boom around Johor and KL faces the same power/grid constraints that are pushing UK growth outside London, and what that means for builders choosing cloud regions.