POWER
The power problem data centres can no longer ignore
Infrastructure, forming the indispensable backbone of the modern digital economy.
By Adam Eaton, CEO of VIRTUS Data Centres T
hey power everything from fi nancial transactions and healthcare records to government services, telecommunications and artifi cial intelligence applications, ensuring the seamless operation of society and the resilience of essential services against disruption.
Without reliable, high-capacity data centres, the UK’s ability to function in an increasingly data-driven world would be severely compromised. Beyond domestic needs, these facilities are vital to maintaining the country’s global competitiveness. They attract substantial international investment, support world-leading sectors such as fi ntech, life sciences and creative industries, and enable British businesses to harness cutting-edge technologies like cloud computing and advanced analytics. By positioning the UK as a leading European data hub, they foster innovation, create high- skilled jobs and help secure a competitive edge in the global race for technological supremacy and economic growth. However, the data centre industry has a power problem, and the sector knows it. Demand for electricity is growing faster than grid infrastructure was designed to handle. AI workloads are driving rack densities to levels that challenge every assumption about cooling and power distribution, and the queue for new high-voltage grid connections
10 JUNE 2026 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS
in the UK now stretches beyond a decade in some areas. For engineers working in this space, power has become one of the defi ning constraints of the current era. It is true that the numbers are stark. A hyperscale facility can draw anywhere from 100MW to several hundred megawatts at full load. A single large-scale AI training run can consume as much electricity as a small town uses in a month. As these workloads proliferate across enterprise, research and public sector environments, the aggregate
demand on national grid infrastructure is growing at a rate that planners were not prepared for.
However, what is not true is that data centres only burden the grid and rely on high-carbon energy.
The grid connection crisis In the UK, surging demand has collided with a grid connection system under serious strain. Speculative applications, submitted by developers with no fi rm plans, have clogged
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