The growth of data and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, including generative AI, has led to an explosion of interest in and demand for data centres. Once obscure, nondescript buildings hosting computer servers, these powered shells have now become the darlings of both the technology and financial worlds.

From computing power to fibre connectivity, traditional energy to renewables and even nuclear power, data protection and digital sovereignty, and not least of all geopolitics and the (re)shaping of global digital infrastructure architecture, topics closely related to data centres have become almost daily news as the world enters the fourth industrial — or AI — revolution.

A new Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure was formed to coordinate policy across the US government in September 2024, while the United Kingdom announced in the same month that it was classifying data centres as critical national infrastructure, alongside energy and water systems.