Drax and Brookfield plan a gigawatt-scale AI data center in Yorkshire

Drax has signed an agreement with Brookfield and Radiant, Brookfield's UK compute platform, to develop an AI data center of more than 1GW at its power station in North Yorkshire, the company said on Nov. 3. Brookfield puts potential investment at more than £20bn including chips, with £2.5bn for a first phase of up to 100MW. The money comes through Brookfield's $20bn AI infrastructure venture with Qai, a Qatar-based AI company.

The plan runs in three steps. Phase one would draw power from the grid through the station's existing connections and start commercial operation in early 2028. Phase two aims to add 500MW between 2028 and 2031, fed directly from Drax's own generation under a long-term power purchase agreement. A third phase after 2031 would take the site past a gigawatt.

Little of it is committed yet. Phase one still needs planning consent, government and grid approvals, an acceptable tenant, commercial contracts and a final investment decision by each partner. Radiant will look for anchor customers before it starts building. A public consultation is due to begin this month. The phase-one budget works out to £25m* a megawatt, and Brookfield's overall estimate counts chips as well as buildings.

Power is the asset Drax is selling. The estate covers more than 1,000 acres, sits beside one of Britain's largest substations and holds about 4GW of grid access and 2.6GW of active dispatchable generation, plus cooling systems.

The bigger phase turns on the government. In November 2025 Drax signed a contract for difference to supply about 6TWh a year of biomass power from April 2027 to March 2031, roughly 30% of the plant's baseload output. That contract lets Drax ask to divert up to 500MW to a data center, but the government and the Low Carbon Contracts Company must agree, weighing value for consumers, energy security and sustainability.

That makes phase two a policy decision as much as a commercial one. Subsidized biomass output would be redirected from the grid to a private customer, and the government would have to approve the switch. The partners say the project fits the criteria of the government's new Data Centre Covenant, which promises faster power and planning for strategically important sites.

For Drax the deal offers a use for the plant beyond its biomass contract, which ends in March 2031. Chief executive Will Gardiner said the site is one of the few in Britain that can supply large amounts of reliable power directly to data-center customers by using existing and underused generation.

For Brookfield it is another powered site for Radiant, which builds and runs AI facilities for hyperscalers, companies and governments. The test of the plan comes when Radiant signs a tenant. Until then, the £20bn is an estimate, not a commitment.

* Rackline estimate, calculated from Drax's Nov. 3, 2026 announcement: £2.5bn of phase-one investment divided by up to 100MW.