Copyright TechTarget - All rights reserved ComputerWeekly’s best articles of the day https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Techtarget Feed Generator en Fri, 17 Jul 2026 23:23:50 GMT https://www.computerweekly.com editor@computerweekly.com <p>I cross the road on a concrete footbridge, the multi-lane A1261 rumbling beneath. Ahead, men in the “uniform” of contemporary IT staff trudge to their afternoon shift, tidy-but-boring shirt and trousers, and a rucksack that lets the side down as it slumps off both shoulders.</p> <p>On the far side, the herb streets announce themselves – Coriander Avenue, Nutmeg Lane, Oregano Drive – a faintly ridiculous grid of suburban-sounding thoroughfares in this nexus of modern industry.</p> <p>Where goods transit sheds once lined the East India Dock, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">datacentres now rise</a>: grey, aluminium-clad, multi-storey blocks whose roofs and facades are shrouded in baffles to dampen the noise from cooling equipment behind.</p> <p>The Global Switch building catches the eye with its giant on-off symbol facade – a piece of architectural semaphore that signals what happens inside. I stop to take a photograph. A security guard approaches before I’ve framed my pic.</p> <p>“Where are you from?” he asks. I tell him. “Who are you taking pictures for?” <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/">Computer Weekly</a>, I say. He tells me I can’t photograph here and I put the phone away. It looks just like a public street, but apparently it isn’t. In this cluster of buildings – perhaps 32 acres in total – looking too closely triggers a response.</p> <p>Some old dock walls are still here, the dock itself now a feature lake – a rectangle of still water that once heaved with shipping. Beside it the sudden manifestation of massed construction workers (pictured) suggests solidarity of labour, but it’s probably just a fire alarm.&nbsp;</p> <p>The focus of our visit is half a mile away, on the other side of the A1261 and closer to the Thames: <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645496/Telehouse-completes-fossil-fuel-free-datacentre-retrofit-as-251m-West-2-build-begins">Telehouse South</a>. The herb street cluster feels like a pleasant piazza that happens to house London’s internet aorta. But then we didn’t try to enter anything there. The entrance to Telehouse South shows us what that might be like.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Foolproof layers of security"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Foolproof layers of security</h2> <p>At the gate, the scale becomes inhuman; cleansed of unwanted or unnecessary activity, with double barriers, tight-wire fences, electric doors, cameras and pre-fabricated walls rising high. You can just about glimpse cooling units silhouetted against the sky. We wait at the gatehouse as security staff take fingerprints and check photo ID, the whole transaction hampered by double-thickness soundproofed glass and bright June reflections that make it hard to relate to the faces on the other side.</p> <p>There are five of us in the party. Almost all fail some of our attempts to negotiate the RFID card, fingerprint and face-recognition entry dance. Eventually, at least 30 minutes after arriving at the perimeter, we get through the first skin and go to meet our guide.</p> <p>Julian Hennessey is projects director for development and construction at Telehouse, and Telehouse South – the building we stand in – is, he tells us, “one of my babies from the beginning”. He has designed and built all its phases.</p> <p>The building has a curious provenance. Originally designed by Richard Rogers – the architect behind the Pompidou Centre and the Millennium Dome – it was conceived with a modular facade that allowed any floor to be either datacentre or office simply by swapping aluminium-clad panels for glazing. Thomson Reuters occupied it as a mixed-use facility: three floors of trading desks above data halls that delivered a PUE of 1.74. When Telehouse acquired the building in 2020, the sitting tenant remained until 2021. Then the work began.</p> <p>What Telehouse has done to the building is less a refurbishment than reinvention. Every gas-fired boiler and water heater was removed and taken off-site, and the building now heats itself entirely from waste heat recovered from the data halls. The roof has been replaced and its insulation thickened. The external facade is new. The glazing on level eight is new. All electrical and mechanical infrastructure – from the perimeter of the building to the customer rack – is new.</p> <p>“We’ve given the building a new lease of life,” says Hennessey. “The building’s bones are the same but the infrastructure is completely new.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="CRAC out; CRAH in"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>CRAC out; CRAH in</h2> <p>We walk the data halls. The lighting is cool and even the air moves with a steady, low-pressure hum. Cold-aisle containment channels chill air under a raised floor and up through customer racks, where it picks up heat and returns to computer room air handling units – CRAHs, as the acronym goes – before being pumped to the roof for heat rejection. The CRAH units, all brand new, contain only water: closed-loop chilled, no adiabatic consumption.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It’s filled once, it’s maintained once a year, it doesn’t constantly use water,” says Hennessey. “It’s like your heating system at home – you fill it once and it just works.”</p> <p>On each rack, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/365532180/Mobile-operator-Three-cuts-datacentre-cooling-energy-usage-through-EkkoSense-deployment">an Ekkosense display</a> glows to show rack temperature. Engineers adjust floor dampers in response, tuning the environment rack by rack.</p> <p>The customers in here are a spectrum. Some occupy shared facilities management – racks in an open aisle, secured by locks and monitored by CCTV, trusted to the building’s five layers of perimeter and biometric security. Others require dedicated facilities management: their own cages, their own additional biometric locks, their own modesty panels.</p> <p>One cage is completely blacked out. No visibility through the grille, not even a gap large enough for a USB stick to pass through. Four layers of security on the cage itself, that adds to the five to get to the floor.&nbsp;</p> <p>Inside, Hennessey tells us, equipment labels indicate what those servers support – information the customer does not want anyone, even Telehouse’s vetted staff, to see. “The only way we can get in is if there’s an emergency and maintenance staff need to get in,” he says. “But then it needs to be written down who went into it.”</p> <p>Then there are the quarter-racks – a few units of shared space sold at a quarter of the price of a full footprint, aimed at smaller operations that need an edge presence in London. A business might have its main equipment in another country and deploy a single edge router here, buying access to more than 1,000 connectivity partners and the same power and cooling resilience as the largest tenants. “I think that’s the coolest thing we do,” says Hennessey.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Wrapped in polythene"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Wrapped in polythene</h2> <p>We take the lift to the roof. The lift is still wrapped in protective plastic, like the film they put on new cars, to guard against scratches while construction continues on the unfinished floors below.</p> <p>Up here, old and new cooling regimes sit side by side. The old coolers are disconnected, pipework severed. Hennessey gestures towards them. On a mild day like this, he says, they would have sounded “like a helicopter taking off”.&nbsp;</p> <p>Their replacements – rows of new Trane chillers – are purring quietly behind sound attenuation panels mounted on rails, designed to slide aside for maintenance. These units deliver free cooling by ambient air for roughly 78% of the year, which is what helps <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-Data-Bill-Considering-datacentres-hunger-for-power">drive the building’s PUE down from 1.74 to 1.27</a>.</p> <p>Between the chiller rows stand buffer vessels – giant insulated tanks that hold chilled water at supply temperature, ready to ride through a power outage while the generators start. The generators themselves, 12MW of new capacity at N+1 redundancy, sit below – kept, says Hennessey, “almost like prize stallions out there waiting”.</p> <p>The view from the roof is panoramic. Below us on the south side, the Thames curves past the Isle of Dogs toward North Greenwich, where the domed roof of the O2 dominates. Further is the green mound of Crystal Palace Park with its transmitter aerial on top. To the north, the rest of the Telehouse Docklands campus unfolds: the copper-coloured Telehouse Central administration building, the West and East facilities, the original North building – the one that opened in 1988 and now hosts more than 1,000 connectivity partners – and North 2 with its blue columns. And on a plot of land just beyond, the foundations of West 2 are being laid.</p> <p>Old satellite dishes still crown the roof here at Telehouse South – relics of Reuters TV, which once broadcast from here. They no longer function. “No scrap value,” says Hennessey. But they serve an incidental purpose. Their height defines the building envelope for planning; a fixed point against which all new equipment – the acoustic packs on the chillers, the attenuation panels – must be measured.&nbsp;</p> <p>Next to the A1261 the futuristic 1960s ventilation shaft from the Blackwall Tunnel rises, Grade II protected. Telehouse had to consult on that, too.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Blitz target"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Blitz target</h2> <p>Telehouse South sits on what was once Blackwall Yard, the site of two graving docks where ships were floated in, gates closed, water pumped out, and hulls exposed for cleaning and repair. During the Blitz, the East India Dock and its surrounding Poplar streets were prime Luftwaffe targets – the warehouses and goods sheds that occupied this land were as concentrated and vital to Britain’s wartime supply chain as the datacentres are to its digital economy today.</p> <p>We go down the caged steel staircases and walkways beloved of shootout-and-chase-scene movie-makers and back into the building. Past data halls, past aisle cages under construction and fibre routes being pulled, past the breakout spaces with subdued lighting and meeting rooms.&nbsp;</p> <p>This is not a hyperscale AI factory. At 2.7MW per floor, it does not pretend to be. But it does not need to be. The value here is not in compute density, but in connection density – in the dark fibre routes that link every customer on the Docklands campus to every other, in the submarine cables that land in Cornwall and break out here, in the 900 networks that converge through Linx exchanges housed in these buildings, in the financial services and streaming platforms and emergency services infrastructure that depend on microsecond latencies across a few hundred metres of fibre.</p> <p>Back at ground level, we pass through the exit gates and step out onto the public road. A final glance back: the grey facade, the rooftop baffles, the tight-wire fence, the electric gates.&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more datacentre dives</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Datacentre-dive-Inside-nlightens-Bristol-edge-datacentre">Datacentre dive: Inside nLighten’s Bristol edge datacentre</a>: We visited nLighten’s BRS1 datacentre, and travel from gritty city centre fringe to a high-tech overhaul that makes the case for reusing legacy infrastructure over new construction.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643633/Datacentre-dive-From-rust-belt-to-megawatt-AI-factory">Datacentre dive: From rust belt to megawatt AI factory</a>: We visited Terawulf’s Lake Ontario 750MW datacentre development. Photos and recordings weren’t allowed, so we took notes and wrote them up in more traditional ways.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> We visit London’s Docklands datacentre cluster, where former docks now house windowless, aluminium-clad monoliths and Telehouse South is Thames-side fortress of edge connectivity https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/DCConstructionWorkersAA.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Datacentre-dive-Through-the-looking-glass-at-Telehouse-South Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:15:00 GMT <p>Founded in 2003 with seed funding from the CIA’s venture arm, In-Q-Tel – a body whose explicit purpose is to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and the US intelligence community – <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Enterprise-software">Palantir Technologies</a> now holds <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644966/Met-Palantir-pilot-The-DPIA-that-raises-more-questions-than-answers">contracts with the Metropolitan Police</a> and runs <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645814/MPs-call-on-NHS-to-scrap-Palantir-and-its-Federated-Data-Platform">the NHS Federated Data Platform</a> (FDP), a system that touches the health records of 67 million people.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/ezine/Computer-Weekly/The-Met-Police-and-Palantir-more-questions-than-answers">At the Met police</a>, its Culture Standards and Integrity Ecosystem (CSIE) pilot – a Palantir Foundry-based platform – ingested sickness records, complaint histories, custody data and stop-and-search records across more than 50,000 current and former staff.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the NHS Federated Data Platform is a £480m, seven-year contract to connect data across NHS trusts that aims to track and optimise data points such as patient flows, bed occupancy, theatre utilisation, waiting lists and discharge pathways.&nbsp;</p> <p>This has not been without some pushback, however. Two Parliamentary committees have urged the government to scrap the NHS deal, while the London Mayor’s block on the Met’s deployment will soon be contested in court by Palantir.</p> <p>But in both cases, the claim from government buyers and the supplier provides a consistent theme: Palantir delivers capabilities no other can match.</p> <p>This article examines what Palantir is, how its technology works at the component level, which UK and European suppliers offer comparable – and, in some cases, identical – capabilities, and whether the claim that “only Palantir can do this” survives a detailed comparison.&nbsp;</p> <p>The answer matters because the UK is now at a decision point: in February 2027, the government can exercise a break clause in the FDP contract – and the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has urged it to do exactly that.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="From In-Q-Tel to NHS"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>From In-Q-Tel to NHS</h2> <p>Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen and Joe Lonsdale. Thiel’s vision, articulated across years of essays and interviews, framed technology as a geopolitical weapon – an instrument of national power, not a neutral utility. In-Q-Tel’s $2m investment in 2004 embedded the company inside the US intelligence community from its first days.</p> <p>The original product, Gotham, was built for and deployed by the CIA and special forces. It fused data from signals intelligence, human intelligence and geospatial sources into a single analytical environment to enable analysts to perform link analysis, pattern-of-life surveillance and target identification.&nbsp;</p> <p>It was deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for counter-IED [improvised explosive device] operations. In 2016, Palantir successfully sued the US Army when it was passed over for contracts. In 2019, it took over Project Maven, the Pentagon’s AI-driven drone targeting programme, when Google withdrew after an employee revolt.</p> <p>Today, Palantir’s government footprint spans all six branches of the US military, 36 federal agencies, the Israeli military – which has used the technology to plan attacks in Gaza and Lebanon – and police forces in the UK, Germany, Australia and Denmark. In a <em>New York Times</em> profile, CEO Alex Karp said: “Our weapons software is in every combat situation I’m aware of.”</p> <p>The company’s financial trajectory reflects this government-first orientation. In FY2025, Palantir reported $4.5bn in revenue – up from $2.9bn the prior year – with 54% from government customers. It serves 954 customers, with 74% of revenue from the United States.</p> <p>In the prior fiscal year, the top 20 customers generated an average of $64.6m each, while total remaining deal value grew 40% to $5.4bn. The numbers describe a company with extreme customer concentration, overwhelmingly dependent on US government spending, but rapidly diversifying into international and commercial markets.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="What Palantir really sells"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>What Palantir really sells</h2> <p>Palantir’s product offer spans four platforms, but the one deployed at the Met and NHS is named Foundry. Understanding what Foundry does – at the component level – is essential to evaluating whether it is genuinely unique.</p> <p>Pipeline Builder is Foundry’s data integration layer. It ingests structured and unstructured data from databases, application programming interfaces (APIs), spreadsheets, sensor feeds and legacy systems. It transforms, cleans and models that data into a consistent format. This is a well-understood category: Informatica, Fivetran, dbt, Azure Data Factory, AWS Glue, and UK-founded suppliers such as SnapLogic and Matillion all perform the same function.</p> <p>“The Ontology” is Palantir’s architectural centrepiece and the source of most claims about uniqueness. Unlike a traditional data warehouse – where data lives in tables defined by schemas – the Ontology maps digital objects to real-world counterparts: a “hospital bed”, a “police office”, a “waiting list”, a “complaint.” It defines semantic relationships between these objects. An analyst – or an AI agent – does not query table joins, they work with concepts that correspond to how the organisation thinks about its operations.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Ontology also provides a write layer: applications built on Foundry can trigger transactional updates back to source systems, not merely read data. This read-write semantic model is what Palantir means when it describes Foundry as an “operating system for the enterprise”.</p> <p>Workshop is the application layer. It provides a low-code application-building layer for operational applications – such as “hospital operations” for the NHS – that run on the Ontology. These are workflow tools where users can schedule interventions, flag risks, update records and trigger actions that write back to underlying systems.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">What is Ontology – and who else builds one?</h3> <p>In enterprise data platforms, three terms describe different levels of the same idea as we move from raw data to a model of the real world.</p> <p>A knowledge graph stores data as a network of entities (nodes) and relationships (edges). Instead of tables with rows and columns, it represents “Officer A (a node) is connected to Complainant X (a node), which involves Incident M (an edge)”. The leading graph database is Neo4j (Sweden/US); others include TigerGraph (US), Amazon Neptune and Microsoft Graph Engine.</p> <p>A semantic layer sits on top of a knowledge graph – or any data source – and defines what those entities mean in business terms. It translates database columns into concepts such as “bed occupancy rate” or “officer sickness pattern.” Suppliers include AtScale (US), Cube.dev (US) and dbt Semantic Layer (US).</p> <p>Ontology – in Palantir’s usage – combines both, plus an operational workflow layer. It not only models the world but allows applications to act on that model – flag a risk, schedule an intervention, update a record. Palantir’s Ontology is a read-write semantic knowledge graph that human analysts and AI agents interact with.</p> <p>This is not magic. It is a well-understood architectural pattern that combines graph storage, semantic modelling and API-driven operations which Palantir has pre-integrated more tightly than any competitor.&nbsp;</p> <p>But sovereign alternatives exist:</p> <ul class="default-list"> <li>DataWalk (Poland) – explicitly positions its ontology-based link analysis as a Palantir alternative for government intelligence.</li> <li>Scrydon (EU) – sovereign ontology platform designed to run on open table formats inside the customer’s own perimeter, from air-gapped on-premise to cloud.</li> <li>Itemis Analyze (Germany) – European governance layer for data-driven decision-making, marketed as a sovereign alternative to Foundry.</li> <li>d.AP (EU) – ontology-driven operational intelligence platform.</li> </ul> <p>None matches Palantir’s full breadth of pre-integrated components – but none carries US Cloud Act jurisdictional exposure either.</p> </div> </div> <p>Apollo handles deployment. It delivers Foundry and Gotham to multicloud, hybrid-cloud, on-premise, air-gapped and edge environments – managing CI/CD [continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment], updates and failover autonomously. This is the infrastructure layer that lets Palantir deploy to environments where internet connectivity is intermittent or prohibited.</p> <p>Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) adds LLM-augmented agents and automations on top of the Ontology. Rather than dropping raw data into a language model – the approach that creates the governance nightmares most enterprises fear – AIP gives LLMs governed, access-controlled queries to semantic objects. The model asks the Ontology for what it needs, under the same permissions as any human analyst.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="How it works in UK practice"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>How it works in UK practice</h2> <p>The Met Police CSIE pilot, which ran from October 2025 to April 2026, brought together data from Centurion – the force’s system for recording public complaints, conduct allegations, grievances and civil claims – alongside sickness records, HR data, duty-rostering, custody data and stop-and-search interactions. The target population exceeded 50,000 current and former staff. Foundry ingested this data, built an Ontology mapping officers to behaviours, complaints and organisational units, and surfaced approximately 90 metrics across three tiers of prevention.</p> <p>The results were dramatic. Within a week of roll-out, the Met’s Professionalism Directorate identified hundreds of potential misconduct breaches and several alleged criminal offences including abuse of authority for sexual purposes, fraud and sexual assault. Two officers were arrested. Another 98 were assessed for misconduct and 500 received prevention notices after being flagged for abusing the IT duty-rostering system.</p> <p>A Met spokesperson told Computer Weekly: “Our pilot with Palantir allows the Met, for the first time, to bring together data it already lawfully holds in one place.”</p> <p>But the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) – <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644966/Met-Palantir-pilot-The-DPIA-that-raises-more-questions-than-answers">obtained by Computer Weekly in June 2026</a> – revealed significant governance gaps, and the Met’s data protection officer noted it was “not currently clear” whether Palantir would retain Met Police data after the pilot or use it for its own AI model training.</p> <p>The NHS Federated Data Platform contract was awarded in November 2023 to a consortium led by Palantir that includes Accenture, PWC, Carnall Farrar and NECS. The contract was originally reported at £330m over seven years, later described as £480m. It is a cloud-based SaaS platform built on Foundry’s Ontology that maps NHS concepts – patients, beds, appointments, clinicians, Trusts – as linked objects.</p> <p>NHS England estimated the FDP will deliver returns of five times its cost. But Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board reported the FDP “does not currently have any system-level products that offer the same or better functionality compared to the custom-built system already in use for NHS GM”.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to oppose the roll-out at its June 2025 annual meeting. South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust has declined adoption. In July 2026, the Health and Social Care Select Committee urged the government to scrap the contract entirely.</p> <p>The future of the FDP contract with Palantir is under scrutiny. Cross-party MPs, including the Health and Social Care Select Committee and the Science and Technology Committee, have pushed for the NHS to invoke a break clause in February 2027 to replace Palantir with UK-based alternatives or an in-house alternative.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The comparison test: who else can do this?"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The comparison test: who else can do this?</h2> <p>Here, we are not looking at the question of whether the company’s platform works – it does, although <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645814/MPs-call-on-NHS-to-scrap-Palantir-and-its-Federated-Data-Platform">MPs have questioned reported outcomes</a>. The question is whether it contains unique components – and whether any UK or European supplier could assemble equivalent capability without the jurisdictional baggage of a US-headquartered company whose CEO describes it as a weapons software provider.</p> <p>The answer, broken down by component, is outlined in the table below:</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/Palantir-Alts-Table-1200px.png"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/Palantir-Alts-Table-1200px_mobile.png" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/Palantir-Alts-Table-1200px_mobile.png 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/Palantir-Alts-Table-1200px.png 1280w" alt="Palantir alternatives: US/Global &amp; UK/EU suppliers: Palantir’s platform by component, plus comparable offerings from US/gobal vendors and UK/EU-headquartered suppliers. The table lists components and their Palantir offerings, contrasted with US/Global alternatives and UK/EU sovereign alternatives. Source: Computer Weekly research, July 2026. Vendor positioning verified against public company websites and product documentation. " height="383" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>The conclusion this table supports is nuanced but clear. Palantir’s individual components – data integration, warehousing, graph-based semantic modelling, machine learning, workflow applications, deployment automation – are all available from other suppliers.&nbsp;</p> <p>No single European supplier ships them all pre-integrated in the way Palantir does. But the capability to assemble equivalent platforms from sovereign components exists. Germany’s decision to award ChapsVision a domestic intelligence contract over Palantir is evidence of that.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The lock-in mechanism"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The lock-in mechanism</h2> <p>The Ontology is Palantir’s greatest technical achievement and its most powerful lock-in mechanism. As an organisation feeds more data sources through Foundry’s Pipeline Builder, maps more objects into the Ontology, and builds more operational workflows on top, the cost and complexity of exit increase.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Met’s DPIA warned of “risk of lock-in with multiple data sources routing outside of EDP”. But to transition away from Palantir means unpicking an Ontology-based deployment, reconstructing the semantic model, re-mapping every relationship and re-building every operational application that depended on it.</p> <p>Tom Bartlett is founder of Bartlett Data and former deputy director of data engineering at NHS England, where he led the approximately 150-person engineering team that built the national FDP products. His argument is that the individual components do not equal the end-to-end provision that Palantir provides. He said alternative suppliers “cannot replicate the Palantir ontology. The ontology stores the data alongside the semantics, in what Palantir calls the object store.”</p> <p>Describing the way Palantir packages the entire stack required, Bartlett added: “Within each object there are not just the data and the semantics, but also predefined rules that encode the write actions that an application or AI sitting on the ontology can take with the data in that object. It contains a security model that is enforced not only in the objects but in any derived object. It contains active link types which mean no query has to run for the objects to be connected. Nothing like this exists in any other software platform and this is what makes Foundry the market leader.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Analyst Tony Lock, director of engagement and distinguished analyst at Freeform Dynamics, argues the challenges of migrating away from an existing deployment are nearly always the same irrespective of what you are moving away from: “Namely, how do you ensure your new solution, or package of linked tools, delivers what you need today, and expect to need tomorrow, how much effort will building and testing the new solution require, especially in this context ensuring its resilience, availability and security, and do you have the funds and resources available to make the migration in your required timeframe?</p> <p>“Then you have to consider the two biggest – namely, how do you minimise the risk of the migration, and what’s the risk of staying with what you have in place? To make the migration work, you need answers to all of these.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Lock-in and structural risks"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Lock-in and structural risks</h2> <p>Four structural risks compound the lock-in concern.</p> <p>First, jurisdictional exposure. Palantir is a US-headquartered company subject to the US Cloud Act and FISA Section 702. US agencies can compel disclosure of data – even data held outside the United States – without notifying UK authorities. The DPIA’s advice section flagged unresolved questions about data retention and Palantir’s potential role as an independent controller. Computer Weekly separately raised the Cloud Act and FISA jurisdictional exposure with the Met in a second tranche of questions, which the force declined to answer.</p> <p>Second, opacity. The NHS FDP contract is 586 pages and heavily redacted. Also, when Computer Weekly submitted questions to the Met covering the absence of competitive tender, the jurisdictional risk assessment and the final disposition of MPS data held by Palantir, the force declined to respond.</p> <p>Third, democratic accountability. The Met’s CSIE pilot marked workforce consultation as “Considered and not required”. The FDP was opposed by the BMA, the Doctors’ Association UK, patients’ groups and privacy campaigners – but the contract was awarded regardless. The Fable 5 kill switch affair of June 2026 – a US government emergency directive that forced Anthropic to disable its flagship AI models globally – demonstrated in real time what happens when a critical service depends on a single foreign supplier subject to emergency directives outside UK control.</p> <p>Fourth, there is the question of what alternatives were considered. The Met’s DPIA dismissal of all alternatives in a single unsupported sentence – “considered but not viable”, without naming a single evaluated supplier – raises uncomfortable questions about the rigour of procurement governance for high-risk data processing in UK policing.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643883/SIT-Committee-urges-Palantir-exit-in-push-to-end-US-cloud-grip">SIT Committee’s June report</a>, which was published as MPs scrutinised the government’s digital strategy, proposes specific remedies – a cloud consumption dashboard to publicly track contract awards by supplier, mandatory SME spending targets, mandatory break clauses in foreign supplier contracts, and a requirement for the Procurement Act 2023 to prioritise open-source solutions. The EU’s <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643862/EU-unveils-full-stack-sovereignty-package-to-build-Euro-tech-muscle">four-level cloud and AI sovereignty framework</a> – ranging from data residency (Level 1) to full independence from third-country interference (Level 4) – aims to provide a template for sovereign procurement.</p> <p>So, it seems, an honest assessment is this: Palantir sells the tightest pre-integration of data ingestion, ontology-based semantic modelling, analytics, AI agents, operational applications and multicloud deployment on the market. No competitor replicates the full stack exactly – but no competitor needs to. The individual components are commodity or near-commodity capabilities available from UK and European-headquartered suppliers. The question for the UK public sector is whether the convenience of pre-integration is worth the sovereignty cost.&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about Palantir, NHS data and digital sovereignty</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645336/Data-dive-Kill-switch-and-catch-up-can-Europe-close-the-sovereignty-gap">Data dive: Kill switch and catch-up – can Europe close the sovereignty gap?</a> As the US demonstrates it can wield an AI ‘kill switch’, the EU and UK unleash a wave of sovereign tech measures. Can state-led industrial policy bridge a $2tn revenue chasm?</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644966/Met-Palantir-pilot-The-DPIA-that-raises-more-questions-than-answers">Met Palantir pilot: The DPIA that raises more questions than it answers</a>: Computer Weekly’s investigation into the Data Protection Impact Assessment for the Met's Foundry pilot, exposing governance gaps around surveillance, transparency, and staff consultation.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Palantir is a US defence-intelligence company, born from the CIA's venture arm that now operates inside the UK public sector. We examine the claim that its technology does what no other supplier can https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Palantir-EdUseOnly-Adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645878/Palantir-Can-anyone-else-do-what-it-does Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:30:00 GMT <p>Ask any technology decision maker of the last decade why they want to move to public cloud and <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Software-as-a-Service-SaaS">elastic scalability</a> will likely be in the top three reasons. That’s because of the promise of effectively infinite available capacity on demand, for as long as you might need it.</p> <p>It doesn’t actually matter if new customers make use of that scalability, and in fact most of them have probably not done so (especially if they simply lift-and-shifted non cloud-native apps to the cloud). The key decision point was that the capacity was there, ready and waiting at your command.</p> <p>However, there are growing signs that – for Microsoft at least – this open-ended supply of cloud resource might indeed be limited, and potentially <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641533/Azure-customers-up-in-arms-over-full-UK-South-region">even restricted in some markets and sectors</a>.&nbsp;</p> <p>The most recent sign of this are reports that instead of continually growing out their planned Azure platform for GitHub, Microsoft have been using AWS to bolster their capacity and improve GitHub’s resilience, which has suffered multiple outages since Redmond took it over.</p> <p>GitHub has cited multiple issues around tight coupling of services to the underlying infrastructure as well as simple capacity constraints. These are issues that, arguably, transfer directly across to normal cloud platform users and are often accused of driving vendor lock-in.</p> <p>Other areas of Microsoft’s empire also show signs of scaling challenges. These include their roll back on November commitments to deploy fully <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645913/Reeves-speaks-up-about-UK-sovereign-AI">Sovereign AI</a> inferencing. That’s now down to just four of their cloud product areas, with delays of up to two years for Japan, whilst generalising specific national promises to Germany, Italy, Spain,&nbsp; Sweden, Poland and Switzerland, who will now have to share an EU and EFTA regional service.</p> <p>Taken together, it is fair to wonder if Microsoft has – as has been the case before – simply overpromised on what it can deliver?&nbsp;</p> <p>The signs that it has are hard to ignore.</p> <p>If so, the obvious customer response might be to broaden cloud landing options and diversify into a multi-cloud model – though Microsoft’s decision to shed some resources over to AWS for GitHub suggests you might already be multi-cloud but not fully realise it.</p> <p>The positions of the UK CMA who are investigating <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645004/The-1100-lock-in-CMA-Microsoft-probe-exposes-software-ecosystem-at-a-crossroads">possible Strategic Market Status (SMS)</a> and EU regulators who appear close to applying gatekeeper status to Microsoft and AWS, are that you ought to be able to do so – but saying that is a lot different to being able to actually do so.</p> <p>Moving from one cloud platform to another remains a difficult task – this isn’t like having an open ticket and stepping off an overloaded train to an adjacent service run by another operator. Cloud vendor lock-in is a very real thing, and far too many of us today ride on a restricted “this service only” cloud ticket.</p> <p>Technical issues that prevent simple transfers also start well away from the cloud itself. At the desktop, the corporate identity you rely upon for laptop login is often the same one that governs all your cloud services and isn’t directly and openly interchangeable with other cloud providers. Whoever holds your digital user identity is immediately in a preferential position.</p> <p>This is why the CMA investigation under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) is so important and complex. Cloud selection and mobility is more often than not rooted in internal desktop, identity and server room infrastructure and that gives Microsoft a heavy bias.</p> <p>The pressure to move between clouds and mix and match to best commercial and technical fit has never been greater, but whether the CMA and EU regulators can find a way to move us from “this service only” to “use any cloud” nirvana remains unclear.</p> <p>They have the levers to do so, but need to examine the full stack effect and consider whether moving between clouds – while also considering potential scaling limitations from Microsoft – are sufficient reasons to open the market up in the interests of the end user.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about cloud</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641533/Azure-customers-up-in-arms-over-full-UK-South-region">Azure customers up in arms over ‘full’ UK South region</a>. Microsoft customers report being refused capacity, migration projects stuck halfway, and accusations that AI is being prioritised over ‘bread and butter’ offerings</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645540/UKs-largest-businesses-dangerously-exposed-to-cloud-outages">UK’s largest businesses dangerously exposed to cloud outages</a>. British businesses, particularly those in the FTSE 100, are dangerously dependent on large cloud providers, with hypothetical large-scale outages at AWS or Azure regions likely to cause major economic damage, according to the Cyber Monitoring Centre</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> Microsoft promised "infinite" cloud scalability, but signs of capacity strain and regional rollbacks suggest it may be overstretched, forcing customers to rethink vendor lock-in https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/security-identity-access-locks-tostphoto-2-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Has-Microsoft-overstretched-its-cloud-elasticity Thu, 16 Jul 2026 06:26:00 GMT <p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her Mansion House speech to talk about the UK’s AI strategy and sovereign AI capabilities. She described AI as “the defining technology of our generation”, adding that “it will be crucial to our national security and to all our economic futures”.</p> <p>But, as Forrester’s <em>Global sovereignty forecast</em> notes (<em>see ‘<a href="#Strategy">Sovereign strategy limitations</a>’ box below</em>), achieving absolute national sovereignty is expensive and complex. As an example, the report states that it is often unrealistic and unnecessary to develop sovereign AI frontier models. The analyst firm recommends that mid-size nations such as the UK should decide which nations to depend on for their AI capabilities, to what extent and on what terms.</p> <p>As an example of tech innovation coming to the UK, Reeves said that US payment provider <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639735/Santander-and-Mastercard-complete-test-of-AI-initiated-payment">Mastercard has selected the UK as the first country in Europe to roll out its AI agent-based payment system</a> for e-commerce called Agent Pay for Machines. The system works across the Mastercard payment network to enable machine-driven commerce, where software can make payment transactions without human intervention.</p> <p>Reeves sees the role of the UK government as “active and strategic” by “embracing the opportunities of AI while guarding against the risks”, saying: “That means having a serious plan on AI sovereignty, backing UK companies to win at critical positions in the AI stack – through our Sovereign AI unit, through our advanced market commitment to quantum, through our AI hardware plan and through our new AI Economics Institute.”</p> <p>Among the big challenges the UK faces as it builds out sovereign tech and <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644212/UK-minister-of-AI-calls-for-more-attractive-datacentre-builds">AI capabilities</a> is that datacentre running costs are extremely high compared to other geographies.</p> <p>In 2025, think tank <a href="https://www.smf.co.uk/high-energy-prices-threaten-uk-ai-world-leading-status-as-data-centres-cant-keep-up-with-ai-ambitions/">The Social Market Foundation</a> reported that powering a 100 MW datacentre in the UK would cost around £226.5m per year, compared to France (annual costs of £156.3m), and Sweden (£67m). The report also found that annual electricity costs were almost four times higher in the UK than in the United States (£56.8m).</p> <p>Although the UK government has recognised high energy prices, there are questions over whether its energy strategy will deliver real benefits in terms of lower bills in those organisations that are high energy users.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading"><a id="Strategy"></a>Sovereign strategy limitations</h3> <p>Dario Maisto, a principal analyst at Forrester, who co-authored Forrester’s <em>Global sovereignty forecast</em>, believes it is not realistic for a mid-sized country such as the UK to build a sovereign cloud and AI capabilities, given that the hyperscalers have had years to fine-tune their public cloud offerings. He said that it is also difficult, risky and often more expensive to use open source alternatives to commercial products from non-UK software providers.&nbsp;</p> <p>For instance, UK businesses cannot simply move from Microsoft Excel, he said: “The only company that offers an alternative to Excel macros is Google – Google, with Google Workspace – so there is no other alternative to Excel macros. Most of the equivalents to Excel are just spreadsheets. They have no advanced formulae and no advanced functionality&nbsp; ike macros. The same is true with MS Word.”</p> <p>In Maisto’s experience, organisations have different needs when it comes to sovereignty. “Depending on the countries where you need to deploy and the specific compliance requirements in each country, it is mostly related to data protection and data residency requirements and is based on the specific risk appetite of the organisation.”</p> </div> </div> <p>In April, Reeves announced the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) to reduce electricity costs in manufacturing, being expanded to support 10,0000 businesses. BICS exempts eligible businesses from the indirect costs of three electricity schemes: the Renewables Obligation, Feed-in Tariffs, and the Capacity Market, and is worth around £35-£40 per MWh.</p> <p>According to the government, sectors that could benefit include automotive and aerospace, steel producers, metal fabricators, pharmaceutical and medical supplies companies, recycling businesses, plastic producers, nuclear fuel processors, and cooling and ventilation equipment manufacturer</p> <p>However, the <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10315/CBP-10315.pdf"><em>Datacentres: planning policy, sustainability, and resilience</em></a> research brief for members of Parliament, points out that datacentres are not eligible for these schemes, despite being high energy users.&nbsp;</p> <p>At the time it was announced, UK technology trade association, TechUK, said BICS fails to account for several strategically important sectors hit hard by high energy bills, such as the digital infrastructure that underpins a modern economy.</p> <p>“This cherry-picking approach will inevitably leave excluded sectors feeling abandoned, which is why urgent action is needed to reduce energy bills across the board through reform of non-commodity costs (such as levies to fund environmental and social schemes) instead of discounts being awarded to specific businesses,” said TechUK.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more stories about sovereign AI</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>How geopolitical instability could reshape Gulf datacentre investments and <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643123/How-geopolitical-instability-could-reshape-Gulf-datacentre-investments-and-sovereign-AI-strategies">sovereign AI strategies:</a> Rising tensions are forcing hyperscalers, governments and investors to reassess risk, resilience and infrastructure strategies as the Gulf positions itself as a global AI powerhouse.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643093/Sovereign-AI-fund-supports-Hassabis-startup-Isomorphic">Sovereign AI fund</a> supports Hassabis startup, Isomorphic: Isomorphic, which is building a unified drug discovery product based on artificial intelligence, is the third company to receive Sovereign AI funding from the UK government.</li> </ul> </div> </div> The UK government has ambitions to build out its own AI capabilities, but its plans are stumped by high datacentre power costs https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/cloud-computing-4-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645913/Reeves-speaks-up-about-UK-sovereign-AI Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:25:00 GMT <p>Artificial intelligence <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642960/Data-dive-Power-grid-data-shows-birth-of-AI-in-UK-datacentres">(AI)-focused datacentres</a> grew electricity consumption by 50% during 2025, with demand now at 67.7GW – 1.9% of all electricity generation – and the International Energy Agency (IEA) projecting it will more than double to 945TWh by 2030.</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">Datacentres</a> are also increasingly subject to a “delay tax”, where slow grid upgrades can cost more than $10,000 per MW per day. Meanwhile, more than 3GW of datacentre capacity – as much as 13% of US datacentre power – supports “zombie workloads”, unused cloud containers and services that were never properly decommissioned.&nbsp;</p> <p>That’s all according to the latest <em>Global energy report</em> from the International Data Center Authority (IDCA), which also pointed to 11 US state moratoria or stop-build legislation, operators moving behind the grid with their own onsite generation.</p> <p>Also, on emissions, IDCA has introduced a CO2 efficiency index measuring tonnes of CO2 per $1m of GDP, and finds the UK ranks as the 11th most efficient globally at 86.4 tonnes, compared with 156 for the US and 647.9 for China, against a world average of 316.5.</p> <p>The delay tax arises from a fundamental mismatch in infrastructure timelines. A modern datacentre can be deployed in 18 to 24 months, but upgrading grid connections typically requires three to five years. IDCA says average lost revenue costs exceed $10,000 per megawatt, per day, and that a delayed 100MW deployment can approach the billion-dollar mark when the cost of capital and demand shifting elsewhere are factored in.</p> <p>The zombie workload problem points to a different kind of waste. Before building new, capital-intensive power generation, IDCA urges operators and governments to audit their “logical layers” to eliminate these massive inefficiencies. The 3GW of wasted capacity in the US alone is presumed to be increasing worldwide as cloud computing adoption rises. Reclaiming it, the report suggests, could represent a cheap and fast way to free up grid capacity for AI growth.</p> <p>The community veto phenomenon in the US is no longer episodic friction, IDCA finds, but is “highly organised, armed with technical consultants, pre-written ordinance language, and heavily funded ratepayer coalitions”, in which resident groups fight to avoid subsidising transmission and generation upgrades required by datacentres. Maine appears to be the first state moving a statewide datacentre moratorium through its legislature, and similar measures have been introduced in at least 10 other states.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Behind the meter power"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Behind the meter power</h2> <p>The shift to sovereign power – onsite generation behind the meter – is now “federally backed grid policy”, says the report. It cites June’s FERC orders that explicitly directed US Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) to build tariffs that accommodate co-location and behind-the-meter generation.&nbsp;</p> <p>Operators including Google, Microsoft, Equinix and Amazon have already signed deals for nuclear power from SMRs and restarted reactors and existing plants. LNG-fired gas turbines are also being widely used as a bridging fuel, though IDCA warns of a manufacturing bottleneck.</p> <p>Demand for large-frame gas turbines from GE Vernova, Siemens Energy and Mitsubishi Power is so intense that an order backlog now exists for some units until 2030, with turnkey project costs reportedly doubling from roughly $1bn per GW to as much as $2.5bn per GW.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Regulatory landscape shifts"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Regulatory landscape shifts</h2> <p>The regulatory landscape continues to shift rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic.</p> <p>In the US, <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/fact-sheet-ferc-takes-action-supercharge-americas-grid-efficiency-reliability-and">the June 18 FERC orders</a>, issued under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act, require major RTOs to report on their ability to supply within 30 days and justify tariff proposals within 60 days. FERC deliberately left retail and facility siting to individual states, but singled out the <a href="https://www.spp.org/markets-operations/high-impact-large-load-hill-integration/">Southwest Power Pool’s High Impact Large Load process</a> as a potential model for <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639649/UK-government-reform-could-see-datacentres-jump-grid-connection-queue">fast-tracking operator applications</a>.</p> <p>In Ireland, the government officially ended its multi-year datacentre moratorium in December 2025 by introducing a <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/en-gb/insights/publications/2026/01/new-irish-large-energy-users-connection-policy">Large Energy Users Connection Policy</a>. New facilities must now operate under a “bring your own power” model, installing onsite or proximate generation capable of matching their maximum requested demand. Operators must also meet at least 80% of annual electricity demand through additional renewable energy projects generated within the Republic of Ireland within six years of connection.</p> <p>In Virginia – home to “Data Center Alley” in Loudoun County – a rate class takes effect from January 2027 that requires datacentres to cover 85% of transmission and distribution costs and 60% of generation demand, to directly addressing the cost-allocation tensions that have fuelled community opposition.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentre energy and infrastructure</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642726/IDCA-datacentres-report-Global-concentration-and-the-Goldilocks-zone">IDCA datacentres report: Global concentration and the Goldilocks zone</a>: We report on IDCA’s May 2026 findings, which identified 41 ‘Goldilocks’ nations best positioned for responsible AI and datacentre growth.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">Datacentre dive: AI factory power draw changes the grid calculus</a>: We examine how AI-capable facilities are reshaping grid planning assumptions, with single campuses now drawing power equivalent to small cities.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Global datacentre electricity consumption reaches 1.9% of all generation, with ‘zombie workloads’ wasting 3GW of US capacity alone and a 100MW project delay costing up to $1bn https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Datacentre-management-fotolia.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645704/IDCA-warns-of-delay-tax-as-AI-datacentre-power-surges-50 Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:01:00 GMT <p>Organisations worldwide are racing to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, but there’s a catch.&nbsp;</p> <p>These advanced applications are placing unprecedented demands on datacentre infrastructure. The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639658/Huge-grid-and-heat-challenges-ahead-as-Nvidia-set-for-1MW-rack">immense power consumption and cooling requirements</a> of AI-capable servers are pushing traditional management tools to their limits and create an urgent need for infrastructure and operations (I&amp;O) leaders to develop a more intelligent and resilient approach.&nbsp;</p> <p>This is where <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-performance-troubleshooting-monitoring-and-optimisation">modern datacentre infrastructure management</a> (DCIM) tools matter more than ever.</p> <h3>Massive increase in energy consumption</h3> <p>AI datacentres are fundamentally different from their predecessors. The hardware required for complex machine learning models is <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">incredibly power-hungry</a>. Servers designed for AI can have up to 10x the power requirements of previous architectures.&nbsp;</p> <p>This surge in energy use escalates operational costs and generates a tremendous amount of heat that must be effectively managed to prevent system failures and ensure optimal performance. The result is an environment where the cost of poor management can be catastrophic.</p> <p>In this new landscape I&amp;O leaders cannot rely on basic monitoring and manual interventions. The complexity and dynamic nature of AI infrastructure demand a more exacting solution. Modern DCIM tools provide this by offering a single pane of glass for datacentre operations. They enable staff to see precisely how their facilities are performing, plan for future needs and predict when and where maintenance should be performed to maximise uptime and prevent costly outages.</p> <h3>The power of predictive analytics</h3> <p>DCIM tools were originally developed for on-premises datacentres and were primarily focused on monitoring power cooling and physical assets within a single facility. They were largely reactive systems designed to track inventory and alert staff when a predefined threshold was breached. This approach is inadequate for the proactive management required by AI.</p> <p>Today’s DCIM platforms have transformed from simple asset trackers into AI-powered strategic tools. They leverage machine learning (ML) to deliver real-time analytics, predictive maintenance alerts and intelligent energy optimisation. Instead of relying on static rules, these modern systems analyse vast datasets to identify subtle anomalies, forecast potential failures and provide prescriptive recommendations.&nbsp;</p> <p>They can even automate corrective actions, such as adjusting cooling parameters or generating a maintenance ticket, which transforms DCIM from a passive monitoring tool into an intelligent autonomous operations platform. This shift is crucial to I&amp;O leaders to maintain the efficiency and resilience demanded by AI workloads.</p> <p>Advanced visualisation technologies, <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Digital-twins-drive-efficiency-across-machines-and-infrastructure">such as digital twins</a>, are also a cornerstone of modern DCIM. These virtual representations of the physical datacentre infrastructure enable operators to model and simulate changes before they are implemented, provide a shared understanding of the physical world and minimise communication errors between teams. This capability is invaluable when dealing with the complex cabling and physical layouts of advanced AI infrastructure and enables proactive capacity planning and scenario testing in a risk-free environment.</p> <h3>Managing a hybrid landscape</h3> <p>The architecture of modern IT is no longer confined to a single building. It spans on-premises datacentres, colocation facilities and a growing number of edge locations. Traditional DCIM tools offered limited visibility into these remote sites and created operational silos. Modern DCIM platforms have been engineered to manage this distributed landscape.</p> <p>Cloud-based and multi-tenant deployments enable centralised oversight and seamless integration with broader IT monitoring systems. This unified approach provides I&amp;O leaders a holistic view across their entire datacentre portfolio from the core to the edge.&nbsp;</p> <p>Whether it is a large colocation site, or an unmanned micro-datacentre designed for AI inference workloads, modern DCIM ensures consistent management and monitoring from a single dashboard. This allows I&amp;O leaders to standardise deployments and maintain control over geographically diverse installations, ensuring efficiency and security across their organisation’s entire infrastructure.</p> <h3>Sustainability as a competitive advantage</h3> <p>Regulators and the public are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of datacentres and it is clear to see why. Gartner projects that datacentre energy consumption could double by 2030. In response, regulatory frameworks, like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), mandate that organisations track and reduce their carbon footprints.</p> <p>The push for sustainability, however, is more than a compliance exercise; it is a competitive advantage. Efficiency gains translate directly into cost savings, while a strong environmental profile enhances brand reputation. Modern DCIM tools are central to achieving these goals by providing robust sustainability tracking modules.</p> <h3>Effectively tracking carbon</h3> <p>DCIM tools offer real-time dashboards to monitor key performance indicators, such as power usage effectiveness (PUE), carbon usage effectiveness (CUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE).&nbsp;</p> <p>They simplify regulatory compliance through the automated generation of sustainability reports and audit logs. Furthermore, they incorporate predictive carbon management capabilities, which forecast the environmental impact of operational changes and suggest optimal strategies for lowering carbon emissions while maintaining performance. By embedding sustainability into the core of datacentre operations, modern DCIM helps organisations build a greener, more efficient and cost-effective infrastructure.</p> <p>Today, datacentres have become the engines of innovation. Their ability to efficiently support demanding workloads and sustainably will help determine the pace of progress. Modern DCIM tools are the essential control system for these powerful engines, and provide the intelligence, visibility and predictive power needed to manage the complex and dynamic world of AI infrastructure. For any organisation serious about leveraging the full potential of AI, investing in modern DCIM is a necessity.</p> <p>Gartner analysts will further explore datacentre power priorities and challenges at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations &amp; Cloud Strategies Conference in London in November.</p> <p><em>Mark Jaggers is senior director analyst at Gartner</em></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentres</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645496/Telehouse-completes-fossil-fuel-free-datacentre-retrofit-as-251m-West-2-build-begins">Telehouse completes fossil fuel-free datacentre retrofit as £251m West 2 build begins</a>. Docklands campus operator strips all gas from ex-Thomson Reuters facility, cutting PUE from 1.74 to 1.27, while breaking ground on its largest global datacentre at 22MW&nbsp;</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Datacentre-dive-Inside-nlightens-Bristol-edge-datacentre">Datacentre dive: Inside nLighten’s Bristol edge datacentre</a>. We visit nLighten’s BRS1 datacentre, and travel from gritty city centre fringe to a high-tech overhaul that makes the case for reusing legacy infrastructure over new construction</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> AI workloads are pushing traditional datacentre management to its limits. Modern DCIM is now essential, using predictive analytics to ensure resilience, efficiency, and sustainability https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/onlineimages/sustainability_g1284344072.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Modern-datacentre-infrastructure-management-DCIM-is-crucial Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:36:00 GMT <p>Pure Data Centres Group has launched one of Europe’s largest ever <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">artificial intelligence (AI) datacentre projects</a>, a 550MW campus in Seinäjoki, Finland with claimed total investment of more than €7.5bn – the largest ever inward investment into Finland by a UK company.</p> <p>Phase 1 will see more than €1.5bn deployed to deliver 110MW of AI-ready capacity across a site that has planning permission, power secured, and its first substation constructed and live. The developer confirms the first phase is fully leased, with <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-14/pure-dc-building-finland-ai-data-center-secures-microsoft-deal">Bloomberg reporting</a> that Microsoft is among customers signed up to take capacity at the campus.</p> <p>The 370-acre site will scale to support more than 550MW of IT capacity for AI and machine learning workloads, and draws on access to more than 700MVA of renewable power from Finland’s grid. The development uses repeatable 40MW AI-ready modules built with direct liquid cooling to handle the thermal demands of next-generation hardware, and all cooling systems operate as closed loops with zero water use in operation.</p> <p>The Seinäjoki announcement lands at a time when <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639118/Datacentre-demand-is-huge-but-power-and-skills-hold-things-back">power availability has become the single most important growth inhibitor</a> for the European datacentre market. According to the European Datacentre Association’s <em>State of European datacentres 2026</em> report, 67% of operators now rank access to power as their biggest challenge over the next three years, ahead of permitting issues, skills shortages and high energy prices. The report concludes that growth is “increasingly constrained – not by capital or customer appetite, but by energy availability, grid readiness and permitting complexity”.</p> <p>That constraint is most acute in the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Dublin-in-distress-Power-supply-issues-threaten-growth-of-Europes-second-biggest-datacentre-hub">traditional Flap-D markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin</a>, where grid congestion and planning friction have pushed vacancy rates to historic lows. The Eudca reports that “growth is now increasingly distributed across Southern Europe, the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe, and a rising group of Tier-2 metropolitan regions” as operators follow available power rather than fibre density.&nbsp;</p> <p>Pure DC’s own portfolio reflects this shift: alongside Seinäjoki, the company has active projects in Madrid and Abu Dhabi, while its Dublin campus at Ballycoolin bypasses local grid constraints entirely through a private 110MW on-site microgrid.</p> <p>Finland sits at the top of the International Data Center Authority’s Sigma Index – a composite measure of datacentre suitability that accounts for grid headroom, water stress and digital readiness – with a score of 99 out of 100. The International Data Center Authority (Idca’s) <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645704/IDCA-warns-of-delay-tax-as-AI-datacentre-power-surges-50"><em>Global energy report</em></a>, published this month, puts Finland’s sustainable electricity share at 84.3%, comprising 35% nuclear, 18.2% hydro, 17% wind and 13.3% biomass. The country also ranks in the green zone on Idca’s Emissions Reduction Challenge index with a score of 2.3, among the lowest of any developed economy, offering the kind of stable, low-cost, low-carbon baseload that hyperscalers need to power <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">AI training clusters drawing tens of megawatts continuously</a>.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about European datacentre power and expansion</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639118/Datacentre-demand-is-huge-but-power-and-skills-hold-things-back">Datacentre demand is huge but power and skills hold things back, survey shows</a>: Uptime Institute survey finds 78% of operators report an AI-driven demand uplift, but power availability and workforce gaps threaten to cap growth.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">Datacentre dive: AI factory power draw changes the grid calculus</a>: We examine how GPU cluster power density is forcing datacentre operators to rethink site selection, cooling architecture, and grid negotiation.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p>Gary Wojtaszek, executive chairman and interim CEO of Pure DC, said: “We are not building datacentres in Seinäjoki. Together with our partners, including the Seinäjoki Municipality, we are helping create one of Europe’s most important AI ecosystems capable of supporting global tech leaders as well as the next generation of Finnish entrepreneurs and innovators.”</p> <p>The project will generate more than 1,500 construction jobs in Phase 1 and more than 3,000 over the full decade-long buildout. Pure DC has committed to a skills partnership with Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and vocational institutions, that aims to create a pipeline from training to employment in a region traditionally associated with forestry and paper milling.</p> <p>Waste heat from the campus will be redirected into the city’s district heating network – an approach Microsoft has already proven in Finland through an existing partnership with energy utility Fortum, which supplies around 40% of district heating demand for 250,000 people using waste heat from its datacentres in the Helsinki region, according to the Idca report.</p> <p>UK secretary of state for business and trade Peter Kyle said: “It’s fantastic to see a British-headquartered firm thrive on the world stage by delivering the UK’s largest inward investment into Finland, cementing our position as a world leader in the AI space.”</p> <p>When a hyperscaler – reportedly Microsoft – commits to 110MW of capacity in a Finnish city 312km north of Helsinki, with an option on 440MW more, it suggests the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366549215/CBRE-forecasts-rise-in-European-colocation-capacity-in-H2-despite-power-supply-constraints">European datacentre map is being redrawn around the grid</a>, rather than around traditional network peering points. The Flap-D markets will remain critical for latency-sensitive enterprise workloads, but the industrial-scale AI capacity that will underpin the next wave of cloud services is heading north.</p> 550MW AI datacentre project – with Microsoft reportedly signed up – reflects shift as European market moves north to bypass power constraints in traditional Flap-D hubs https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/Helsinki-Finland-pano-Alexey-Fedorenko-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645729/Pure-DC-launches-75bn-Finland-AI-datacentre-campus Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT <p>With more than 500 datacentres currently active in the UK, and <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640935/Data-dive-Government-2030-datacentre-capacity-targets-look-shaky">approximately another 100 in the planning system or under construction</a>, it seems the government is set to fulfil its promise of making the UK an AI superpower.&nbsp;</p> <p>Despite this momentum, the infrastructure is still not in place to support the amount of power needed for the proposed <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">wave of hyperscale datacentres</a> if the country is to continue to lead the sector forwards. The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">electrical grid is already strained</a>, and this is only going to worsen if the necessary infrastructure isn’t developed quickly and at scale.&nbsp;</p> <p>Datacentre operators are following an increasing trend to look for innovative ways of shoring up power, whether this be permanent baseload power or as an interim measure, by striking private deals with energy sources, such as solar farms or gas turbines, to ensure a direct, off-grid connection.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Currently more than 125GW of planned energy and datacentre projects are stuck waiting for a connection to the National Grid, and this problem is only expected to worsen, with the amount of power used by datacentres expected to increase six-fold by 2035.&nbsp;</p> <p>While the government is currently funding the Great Grid Upgrade, an overhaul worth £28 billion, which aims to, in part, strengthen and expand the network so it can accommodate the increasing demand, this complex process takes time. In the meantime, the tech industry is stagnating.&nbsp;</p> <p>To understand the scale of the issues, it’s important to understand the order in which <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642960/Data-dive-Power-grid-data-shows-birth-of-AI-in-UK-datacentres">grid connections are managed</a>, the reforms which have already taken place and what <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366639649/UK-government-reform-could-see-datacentres-jump-grid-connection-queue">further reforms are proposed</a>.&nbsp;</p> <p>For example, grid connections were previously ordered on a “first come, first connected” model, which led to many speculative projects being added to the queue, and resulted in viable projects being unable to source a realistic connection date.&nbsp;</p> <p>As part of grid connections reform and the Great Grid Upgrade, connections will no longer be offered on a “first come, first connected” basis. Instead, the system will become “first ready and needed, first connected”.&nbsp;</p> <p>The National Energy System Operator (NESO) has implemented a gated framework which requires developers to have the necessary land rights, planning approval and financing. The project must also meet the government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan requirements to be eligible.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Those reforms took longer than anticipated to take effect but, critically, only addressed half of the issue. The reform to date has only applied to projects that export or generate power, such as solar or wind farms, while projects that demand power, like datacentres, are still evaluated on a “first come, first served” basis.&nbsp;</p> <p>This had led to an unmanageable queue for projects with a high demand for power, with uncertainty whether or not a grid connection will be available for a viable project. While reform is expected in 2027, it has been delayed multiple times, meaning the demand for power is rapidly increasing with no meaningful way of deciding which projects are and are not viable.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>In the interim, datacentre operators that wish to progress more quickly have been starting to make private deals, also known as “behind-the-meter” deals, with energy generators to get a power connection. This not only helps to speed up project timelines but can contribute to sustainability credentials as well.&nbsp;</p> <p>The biggest driver, however, which sits alongside speed of connection, is the potential for fixed tariffs from a private supplier that are often at a vastly reduced rate when compared withpower from the grid. This is possible because so much of an electricity bill is made up of “use of system” or “balancing” charges, which help to fund the investment and upgrading of grid infrastructure. These charges can make up approximately 40% of electricity bills, so striking a deal with a private operator who can avoid these grid costs can be hugely cost effective.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>It’s vital that hyperscaler datacentres begin reaching out and exploring partnerships with off-grid energy sources early in the planning and construction process. These deals can take time to finalise, and organising the deal alongside the construction will help ensure it can be functional as soon as possible.&nbsp;</p> <p>When structuring a deal, there’s a number of considerations that are critical to ensuring efficient service. Many renewable generators will have requirements under government-backed contracts, meaning their services could be required by the grid at short notice. It’s critical, therefore, that before entering into a partnership, datacentre operators are fully aware of the generator’s obligations and whether, if they are called upon, the datacentre’s source will be affected.&nbsp;</p> <p>Although these deals aren’t widely utilised, there is already conversation in the industry about using them as more than just a stopgap. “Behind the meter” deals are increasingly being considered to be the permanent primary or backup power source even after a datacentre is connected to the National Grid. This will also have the benefit of relieving some pressure on the grid while still supplying demand.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>A consistent power supply is vital for datacentres, so securing a reliable connection to a power supply needs to be top priority. With the current delays in the National Grid system, and the lengthy modernisation process still ongoing, datacentre operators are being forced to turn to other energy sources.&nbsp;</p> <p>While striking a private deal is a solution to getting the datacentre operational quickly, currently it is also likely to be a method of futureproofing long-term. Although behind-the-meter deals aren’t common, they are vital for datacentre operators who are looking to build reputations for providing a resilient and reliable service.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><em>Peter Dilks is energy and real estate partner at law firm Shakespeare Martineau.</em></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentre pipeline</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640447/Hit-the-north-UK-datacentre-focus-shifts-to-M62-and-points-north">Hit the north! UK datacentre focus shifts to M62 and points north</a>. Barbour ABI data shows 8GW of total datacentre pipeline with most big projects in the north and Scotland, while London and the M4 corridor are about 25% of projected capacity</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640935/Data-dive-Government-2030-datacentre-capacity-targets-look-shaky">Data dive: UK government’s 2030 datacentre capacity targets look shaky</a>. We look at UK datacentre capacity – current and projected – and find DSIT’s 2030 target for 6GW of AI-capable capacity is currently out of reach, unless operators get a move on</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> UK datacentre growth is stalled by National Grid delays. Operators are increasingly using "behind-the-meter" private energy deals to secure reliable, cost-effective power faster https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/Network-electricity-pylons-sky-zhengzaishanchu-Adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Datacentres-need-toconsider-alternatives-to-grid-connection Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:03:00 GMT <p>It took four years for Microsoft datacentres to increase their greenhouse gas emissions by four-million tonnes. Between 2024 and 2025, its datacentre carbon footprint jumped by a further four-million tonnes to 20-million tonnes.&nbsp;</p> <p>The company’s <a href="https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/msc/documents/presentations/CSR/2026-Microsoft-Environmental-Sustainability-Report-PDF.pdf"><em>2026 Environmental sustainability report</em></a>, shows that total emissions (Scopes 1, 2, and 3) increased 25% year over year (YoY), driven primarily by the expansion of Microsoft <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-great-datacentre-backlash-The-industry-response">datacentre infrastructure</a>.</p> <p>Microsoft said it has needed to prioritise investments that bring net new power to grids, which has led to it pausing the purchase of “green credits” known as non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates.</p> <p>In a blog post, <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/02/13/progress-on-the-road-to-2030/">Microsoft president Brad Smith</a> said: “While this decision increases our reported emissions in the near term, it enables us to increase the development of new CFE (carbon-free energy) rather than relying on certificates alone. We believe this change will create more long-term sustainability benefits. Growth-related emissions pressure was expected. The more important signal is where that pressure is concentrated.”</p> <p>The Microsoft report shows that one of the clearest changes this year was the growing contribution of <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644212/UK-minister-of-AI-calls-for-more-attractive-datacentre-builds">Scope 2 emission,</a> which represent indirect greenhouse gas emissions arising from the from datacentre cooling. Microsoft reported Scope 2 emissions accounted for 13% of its total emissions – up from nearly 2% last year.&nbsp;</p> <p>The report’s authors said that while the global shift toward artificial intelligence (AI) is driving economic growth, innovation and technology product development, AI also has an environmental impact, increasing demand for power, cooling and water.</p> <p>Smith said: “The global shift toward AI is reshaping economies, accelerating innovation and becoming foundational to how technology is built and used. It is also increasing demand for the energy, water, land, and materials required to support that growth.</p> <p>“As a company at the forefront of this transition, Microsoft has a responsibility to help ensure that technology strengthens, rather than strains, the systems and communities on which it depends. This imperative is reshaping the context for our work.”</p> <p>Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich has been vocal about new <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644212/UK-minister-of-AI-calls-for-more-attractive-datacentre-builds">datacentre builds appearing across the US</a> and has developed a website where residents affected by these new sites can voice concerns. In an article on the <a href="https://www.thebrockovichreport.com/p/if-data-centers-are-so-great-why"><em>The Brockovich Report</em></a> website, co-authored with journalist Suzanne Boothby, Brockovich spoke about “the wholesale remaking of the American landscape, town by town, county by county”.</p> <p>She added: “I’m not making a blanket argument against datacentres or against the technology they support. What is not acceptable is the pattern our map documents: projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don’t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] before their neighbours knew a project was being considered,” she said</p> <p>Smith’s post suggests Microsoft is beginning to recognise the backlash against datacentre builds. He said: “We are placing greater focus on helping restore more water to the watersheds where we operate than we withdraw while strengthening long-term water resilience. We prioritise projects in water-stressed regions that are locally relevant and designed in partnership with communities, delivering benefits not only for water availability, but also for ecosystems, economies and people. Through this approach, we aim to ensure our growth supports and helps sustain the communities and environments where we operate.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more stries about datacentre greenhouse carbon emissions</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Tech bros beware – <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Tech-bros-beware-Erin-Brockovich-is-coming-for-you">Erin Brockovich</a> is coming for you: The campaigning heroine of the eponymous movie has AI datacentres in her sights, just as Big Tech spending on memory chips sends PC and mobile prices spiralling up.</li> <li>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-great-datacentre-backlash-The-campaigners">great datacentre backlash</a> – The campaigners: In part one of a series looking at attitudes to datacentres, we look at the organisations that oppose new builds.</li> </ul> </div> </div> Growth in carbon emissions for 2024-25 matches total emissions over the previous four years, as Microsoft focuses on datacentre power https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/disaster-recovery-fire-datacentre-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645661/Microsoft-admits-datacentre-greenhouse-gas-emissions-hike Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:38:00 GMT <p>When the US government suspended foreign access to Anthropic's most advanced AI models last month, overseas users<a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Software-as-a-Service-SaaS"> lost access overnight</a>. The lesson from this was not about one product. It was that access to technology can be switched off by a government decision at any moment – without any warning or negotiation.</p> <p>The question it raised for every modern business was not just whether a service remains available, but who has legal power over the provider behind it. The US CLOUD Act is the clearest example. It <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-sovereignty-all-just-a-case-of-Trust-me-bro">requires US-based providers to disclose data</a> in their "possession, custody, or control" – wherever in the world that data physically sits, including providers owned by a US parent company.&nbsp;</p> <p>A sovereign-branded cloud with a datacentre in London and a parent company in Virginia is still within reach of US law. Location provides almost no real protection.</p> <h3>Regulation is catching up with the problem</h3> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645336/Data-dive-Kill-switch-and-catch-up-can-Europe-close-the-sovereignty-gap">The EU is taking steps</a> to keep pace by bringing in its Cloud and AI Development Act which proposes a single sovereignty framework with four levels of independence. This runs from basic data residency at Level 1 up to genuine independence from third-country interference at Level 4.</p> <p>In other words, European regulation now says in law what the market has been slow to admit: that residency is the lowest rung of sovereignty, not the definition of it. This marks a definitive step towards European infrastructure autonomy.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643862/EU-unveils-full-stack-sovereignty-package-to-build-Euro-tech-muscle">And within Europe</a>, the cloud industry is moving the same way – CISPE's "Sovereign and Resilient Cloud Services Framework" gives customers a way of assessing providers on evidence of true sovereignty rather than marketing buzzwords.</p> <h3>The sovereignty gap</h3> <p>The risk for business sits in the gap between where data lives and who controls it. If an organisation cannot say who can access its data, and under which legal framework, it does not have the control it thinks it has.</p> <p>This is complicated further by the rapid evolution of AI applications. As AI systems and critical workloads move into production, that sovereignty gap gets harder to defend – to regulators, to customers and to boards of directors.</p> <p>Plenty of providers now use the language of sovereignty, but far fewer can evidence it. This is "sovereignty washing" – a local flag on the datacentre, a region selector on the sign-up page and a confident sales message, while ownership, legal reach and operational access remain conveniently vague.</p> <p>Under the EU's framework, that gets you to Level 1, nothing more.</p> <h3>What organisations should ask for from infrastructure providers</h3> <p>Addressing sovereignty and control is now a matter of due diligence, not a branding exercise. Before signing, businesses need firm answers to several questions about who has legal control over the provider and its parent company, and under which jurisdiction.</p> <p>They should know, for example, where support staff sit, what they can access, and where backups live, since they deserve the same scrutiny as production systems.</p> <p>Exit routes need to be contractual and tested, too, because if you cannot move a workload without major disruption, you do not control it. Portability across the stack is another key aspect, so that critical dependencies like identity and core data layers are not locked into one ecosystem.</p> <p>Although many sovereignty concerns are directed at hyperscale cloud, it still has a valid role in a hybrid architecture for specialist services such as burst capacity and rapid experimentation. A mature cloud strategy is about matching each workload to the jurisdiction, risk profile and level of control it requires.</p> <h3>Control is becoming the real test of cloud sovereignty</h3> <p>Businesses should not accept claims about access and control in the cloud at face value. A rigorous approach is required to avoid unexpected government intrusion and prepare for regulations such as the EU Cloud and AI Development Act. True sovereignty that protects businesses manifests itself in architecture, contracts and day-to-day service delivery. If the answers to the key questions are vague, the label is doing too much work.&nbsp;</p> <p>This shift is levelling the playing field. Jurisdictional clarity is starting to matter as much as a provider’s global scale, so I hope the providers who can open the books on ownership, access and exit are those winning the projects involving sensitive workloads.&nbsp;</p> <p>For local and regional sovereign cloud providers, this is a genuine opportunity. They are built to answer the main concerns about clear ownership, jurisdictional certainty and direct accountability – and for the first time the market is asking for what they have always offered.&nbsp;</p> <p>For UK and European businesses, that is not a constraint. It is the first time in years the control question has a real answer.</p> <p><em>Jake Madders is director and co–founder of Hyve Managed Hosting</em></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about data sovereignty</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-sovereignty-all-just-a-case-of-Trust-me-bro">Is cloud data sovereignty all just a case of 'Trust me, bro'?</a> Hyperscaler cloud is inherently global. Does that make data sovereignty unattainable – especially given the powers US courts hold? We grilled the hyperscalers in an attempt to find out.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645336/Data-dive-Kill-switch-and-catch-up-can-Europe-close-the-sovereignty-gap">Data dive: Kill switch and catch-up – can Europe close the sovereignty gap?</a> As the US demonstrates it can wield an AI 'kill switch', the EU and UK unleash a wave of sovereign-tech measures. Can state-led industrial policy bridge a $2tn revenue chasm?</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> US law can access global data via providers, making local data residency insufficient. Businesses must prioritise true jurisdictional control over "sovereignty washing" marketing https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/UK-border-control-passport-travel-getty.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Why-legal-control-beats-location-in-data-sovereignty Mon, 13 Jul 2026 07:07:00 GMT <p>On 30 September, a piece of US legislation that most people outside the datacentre industry have never heard of is due to quietly expire. The<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/933/text"> Federal Data Center Enhancement Act</a> sets minimum standards for federal datacentres, that cover uptime, power reliability, resilience and – crucially – protection against physical intrusion. When it sunsets, there is no replacement waiting. The floor simply disappears.</p> <p>It is tempting to read that as a narrow, US, governmental problem. I would argue it is the opposite. The timing tells you everything. We are removing a baseline for physically <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-disaster-recovery-and-security">securing datacentres</a> at the precise moment AI is driving the largest and fastest infrastructure buildout the sector has ever seen.&nbsp;</p> <p>That combination should concern anyone who operates, finances or depends on a datacentre, wherever in the world they sit.&nbsp;</p> <p>To be precise about scope, the Act only ever bound US federal datacentres and the contractors that run them for government, never commercial operators. That is exactly why its lapse matters as a signal rather than a local rule change. When even the government's own floor is allowed to disappear, the baseline everyone else benchmarks against tends to go with it.</p> <p>The first reaction I usually hear is that other rules will catch it, FISMA and the NIST control catalogue still apply, after all. And they do, up to a point. But the Enhancement Act was the operational mandate, the thing that forced datacentre-specific implementation and assessment. Take it away and agencies are left with significant discretion over how, and whether, they apply physical protections. FISMA provides the principle. The Enhancement Act provided the practice. Principles without a mechanism to enforce them have a way of being interpreted generously.</p> <p>We have seen this film before. The Act's predecessor – the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act (FDCEA) – lapsed in 2022 and took years to bring back, even with bipartisan support and an obvious case for renewal.&nbsp;</p> <p>The risk here is not a single dramatic repeal that makes headlines. It is administrative drift, a requirement that quietly fails to return because nothing forces the issue. That is how security baselines erode: not with a decision, but with the absence of one.</p> <p>The obvious worry, that established operators will strip out physical security because a statute lapsed, isn't where the real exposure lies. Their existing facilities, their existing contracts and their own risk appetite keep that spending in place. The exposure is in the new builds.</p> <p>The AI-era expansions going up right now are specced and procured at extraordinary speed. Most of that capacity is private, built by hyperscalers and developers the federal mandate never bound. That is exactly why its loss matters. It was the one enforceable floor in the system, and once the public benchmark goes there is nothing firm left for the private builds to be measured against. Remove the mandatory assessment framework and physical security becomes something that can be quietly scoped down during procurement to hit a budget or a timeline, with no compliance flag and no formal alert. The gap does not open in the datacentres we already have. It opens in the ones we are racing to build.</p> <p>This is why the story matters well beyond US federal infrastructure. Every market is in the middle of the same race. The pressure to build AI capacity fast, and the temptation to treat physical security as a flexible line item, are universal. A regulatory sunset in Washington is simply the clearest illustration of a risk that already exists in every fast-moving build. Physical security is the easiest thing to quietly defer, and the hardest to retrofit once the concrete is poured.</p> <p>There is a deeper contradiction worth naming, too. Governments increasingly<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/data-centres-to-be-given-massive-boost-and-protections-from-cyber-criminals-and-it-blackouts"> classify datacentres as critical national infrastructure</a>, and rightly so. Pulling their security baseline at the same time runs in two directions at once. You cannot call something critical and simultaneously make its protection optional.</p> <p>The answer is not simply more regulation, although a sensible renewal would help. It is for operators to stop treating physical security as a compliance obligation that rises and falls with the statute book, and start treating it as core design.&nbsp;</p> <p>The consistent lesson from securing large-scale critical facilities is that physical security cannot be a set of disconnected tools: a camera here, an access reader there, bolted on at the end of a project timeline. It has to be designed as one integrated system from the start, where access control, video, identity and alarms work together and an anomaly anywhere triggers a coordinated response.</p> <p>The lapse of a law should not be the thing that decides whether that happens. For an asset we all agree is critical, to get its protection right should not require a mandate. But it would help if we stopped quietly removing the ones we already have.</p> <p><em>Kumar Sokka is CEO of </em><a href="https://www.acresecurity.com/en-gb"><em>Acre Security</em></a><em>, a global physical security provider</em></p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentre security</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641487/UK-reliance-on-US-big-tech-companies-is-national-security-risk-claims-report">UK reliance on US big tech companies is ‘national security risk’, claims report</a>. UK government urged to follow European countries by backing technology based on open standards.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645540/UKs-largest-businesses-dangerously-exposed-to-cloud-outages">UK’s largest businesses dangerously exposed to cloud outages</a>. British businesses, particularly those in the FTSE 100, are dangerously dependent on large cloud providers, with hypothetical large-scale outages at AWS or Azure regions likely to cause major economic damage, according to the Cyber Monitoring Centre.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <p></p> <p></p> The US Federal Data Center Enhancement Act expires soon and will remove critical physical security baselines. This risks eroding standards during the AI-driven global infrastructure boom https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/HeroImages/Cameras-Samos-Closed-Controlled-Access-Centre-CREDIT-Lydia-Emmanouilidou-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-US-is-set-to-delete-a-datacentre-security-rule-Bad-timing Fri, 10 Jul 2026 04:52:00 GMT <p>Whether arising from a cyber attack or another form of disruption, a 24-hour outage affecting major Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure cloud regions in the UK, Ireland, Europe or the eastern US could trigger major economic disruption across the UK, causing direct revenue losses of between £650m and £1bn, with downstream costs likely to rise significantly, according to a report from the UK’s <a href="https://cybermonitoringcentre.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cyber Monitoring Centre</a> (CMC).</p> <p>The CMC worked with cyber insurance supplier <a href="https://www.parametrixinsurance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parametrix</a> on the report, <i>The cost of downtime: UK exposure to cloud infrastructure failure,</i> which was compiled to help support the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366640484/UK-Cyber-Monitoring-Centre-plans-expansion-in-US-amid-risk-of-Category-5-attack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CMC’s core mission</a> of assessing and detailing the financial impact of major cyber events.</p> <p>The report identified that while only 11% of UK companies were “cloud-dependent” for critical functions, this figure rose to 64% when weighted by revenue and over 80% across the FTSE 100 group of organisations, meaning cloud outages disproportionately affect some of the nation’s most economically important companies.</p> <p>It described 80% of all UK organisations as being “dependent” to some degree on either AWS, Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure services, with exposure across the FTSE 100 spread roughly 50/50 between cloud regions located in the UK and Ireland and those located elsewhere. Naturally, the largest organisations were found to have the greatest geographic distribution of cloud risk. AWS us-east-1, AWS eu-west-1, and Azure northeurope/westeurope had the greatest exposure.</p> <p>“This paper has been developed at an important stage in the UK’s adoption of cloud computing. Nearly 80% of companies in the UK with more than £50m of revenue are reliant on cloud infrastructure, and many of these use the cloud for business-critical operations,” said CMC CEO Will Mayes.</p> <p>“Mapping out cloud data usage provides a valuable starting point for the CMC’s analysis of future cloud failure events. Actual losses would likely end up being significantly higher when accounting for the knock-on impacts to customers of cloud users, and this will be an important element of our analysis if a major cloud outage occurs.</p> <p>“The findings reveal a UK economy which is increasingly dependent on cloud infrastructure, with exposure concentrated at a small number of critical aggregation points. This concentration creates systemic vulnerabilities that require coordinated action from companies, insurers, regulators and policymakers to manage effectively. This isn’t about stepping back from the cloud; it’s about recognising that cloud is now part of our critical infrastructure, and designing, governing and investing accordingly,” Mayes concluded.&nbsp;</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Healthcare, IT and tech in the crosshairs"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Healthcare, IT and tech in the crosshairs</h2> <p>The CMC and Parametrix said that among the largest FTSE 100 companies, cloud dependency was highest in healthcare, and software and IT services, followed by financial services and transportation.</p> <p>Sectors such as manufacturing, retail and wholesale were found to be less exposed. However, given their economic weight, these industries still represent a significant problem for the wider economy should their operations be disrupted.</p> <p>The CMC and Parametrix said organisations must work to quantify their cloud exposure and potential financial impact, and warned that too many still lacked visibility into their various dependencies and exposures.</p> <p>Complicating this necessary work, however, is the undeniable fact that effective risk management in this area will require coordinated action across stakeholders, since the systemic nature of cloud dependencies will – should a major outage occur – cascade rapidly.</p> <p>Managing the risk effectively will require user organisations to build more robust architectures, policymakers to ensure regulatory frameworks are keeping pace, and the insurance industry to price and cover such risk appropriately.</p> <p>“Cloud services have become one of the most important layers of critical infrastructure, yet most organisations have only a limited understanding of where their dependencies actually lie,” said Sharon Haran, chief commercial officer at Parametrix.</p> <p>“You can’t manage, monitor, or transfer a risk that you haven’t first identified and quantified. We’re proud to partner with the Cyber Monitoring Centre on this analysis, which gives UK businesses a clearer picture of where cloud exposure is concentrated and what a major outage could mean for both individual organisations and the UK economy.”</p> <p>An AWS spokesperson said: “This report models scenarios that have never occurred and do not reflect how the cloud actually operates. For more than 20 years, AWS has been architected to deliver the highest levels of availability and reliability through fault isolation and redundancy across both our physical infrastructure and our cloud services. AWS customers with critical workloads can easily shift away from an impacted Availability Zone to other Availability Zones in the same region, or recover to another AWS region, when there is a rare disruption. All of these are basic and standard resilience practices the report's modelling does not account for.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about cloud risk and security</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>We look at the political and government responses to risks around data sovereignty and massive dependence on the three US hyperscalers – AWS, Azure and GCP – <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Breaking-the-stranglehold-Responses-to-data-sovereignty-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the UK and Europe</a>.</li> <li>Cloud ERP governance redistributes operational responsibility without transferring accountability. Oversight clarity and control discipline <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/Why-cloud-ERP-governance-shifts-accountability-and-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">determine modernisation stability</a>.</li> <li>Containers are an integral part of a growing number of production environments. But they can become security risks <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/feature/What-are-cloud-containers-and-how-do-they-work" target="_blank" rel="noopener">if not managed correctly</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> British businesses, particularly those in the FTSE 100, are dangerously dependent on large cloud providers, with hypothetical large-scale outages at AWS or Azure regions likely to cause major economic damage, according to the Cyber Monitoring Centre https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/disaster-recovery-fire-datacentre-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645540/UKs-largest-businesses-dangerously-exposed-to-cloud-outages Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT <p>I have always believed in the positive effects that technology can have for society. The invention of the printing press, the steam engine and the X-ray machine all came with societal challenges but overall had a net positive effect on society.</p> <p>I have always strongly believed that <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Open-Source-Insider/OpenUK-Public-Good-AI-report-2025-good-could-do-better">artificial intelligence (AI) can similarly be a force for good</a>. In fact, this is what drew me to work on tech governance in the first place. I strongly believed that if the right laws and guidelines are deployed, AI can improve people’s lives.</p> <p>Today, when I look back over the last decade or so, I am less sure.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Tech deregulation"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Tech deregulation</h2> <p>Recent years have been marked by strong campaigns to deregulate the tech sector to “cut the red tape” and unleash the full potential of AI. The narrative of having to win “the AI race” and establish <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366637125/Campaigners-urge-UK-to-develop-digital-sovereignty-strategy">digital sovereignty</a> in light of a difficult geopolitical situation has fuelled a wave of deregulation. This lopsided focus on economic growth has led to questionable policy decisions.</p> <p>It has become almost sacrilegious to question the policy goal of growing the AI industry. There is an underlying assumption that AI growth will necessarily be beneficial for everyone. AI companies are often portrayed as “heroes” that will improve people’s lives, if we will just let them innovate free and uninhibited. &nbsp;</p> <p>But is that really the case?</p> <p>In this situation we can take lessons from a classic Greek myth - the tale of Perseus and Medusa. Perseus, son of divine parentage, is said to be a strong and fearless hero who journeys to slay Medusa, a seemingly invincible monster whose mere gaze can turn living beings into stone.</p> <p>Yet, as history writer Natalie Haynes points out, Perseus did not work alone. He received significant aid from the gods to help him in his quest, including a cap of invisibility from Hades, winged shoes from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus, and a shield, enchanted bag, and strategic council from Athena. Without this aid, Perseus could not have slain Medusa. Nonetheless, he is commonly thought of as a “self-made” hero.</p> <p>Today, similar narratives are crafted about AI companies and their founders. These “self-made” innovators are said to make the impossible, possible. However, just like Perseus, they rely on substantial public assistance from the state to realise their goals.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The public pays"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The public pays</h2> <p>The public already “pays” for AI through a wide range of substantial (in)direct subsidies. The aforementioned efforts to deregulate and weaken data protection, labour, environmental, liability, non-discrimination, and intellectual property laws are a key form of regulatory subsidy, but equally important are the tax breaks, direct public funding, and privileged access to public lands, water, electricity, data, and infrastructure companies already receive. Policymakers often take decisions to offer this help without meaningfully consulting the people ultimately paying for it.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> AI companies would not be successful without the public’s support. Our data, our land, our electricity, our water and our weakened fundamental and individual rights all help support the AI industry </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Sandra Wachter</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>The EU’s Digital Omnibus and the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), among many other political initiatives, are chief examples of the attempt to weaken regulatory restrictions on technology at the cost of fundamental rights and environmental protections, and pave the way for further roll-out of general-purpose AI products and services, as well as the datacentres needed to power them.</p> <p>The Omnibus and CADA are driven by a desire to unleash the “full potential” of AI and improve competitiveness. Deregulation is allegedly a necessary cost to achieve these goals.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>The problem with this argument for deregulation for the sake of innovation is that relevant counterfactuals are never considered. For example, what are the costs of deregulation? How many people will lose access to legal recourse when AI harms them?&nbsp; How many more people will face AI-driven discrimination due to weakened equality standards? How many people will have their health harmed by weakened environmental laws, or face restricted access to essential public resources?</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Unfulfilled promises"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Unfulfilled promises</h2> <p>These are not hypothetical questions - <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Datacentre-developers-tout-benefits-to-local-communities-but-do-they-deliver">the public is already facing real costs from state support of the AI industry</a>. For example, further building out of AI datacentres is already underway in Spain, Germany, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Ireland.</p> <p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/28/irish-datacentres-household-bills-electricity">Reports</a> in Ireland show that demand for electricity and water already outstrips available supply, meaning residents are facing increased prices for essential utilities. Residents are also losing access to public lands. Historical trends suggest that promises that new datacentres will create significant employment opportunities are <a href="https://algorithmwatch.org/en/infrastructure-intrusion-conflict-data-center/">rarely ever fully fulfilled</a>.</p> <p>Through the various forms of support and subsidies being paid, the public is in all but name a shareholder of AI companies. And yet, they are promised little in return to justify the subsidies granted by policymakers on their behalf.</p> <p>We need to start asking ourselves different questions about the AI industry. Rather than naively assuming all AI innovation is socially beneficial, we should ask: what exactly does the public receive in return beyond access to a technology of dubious value? Why are AI companies the only beneficiaries of current arrangements, while the public only pays the costs?</p> <p>AI systems pose severe and uncertain risks for society and yet are sold predominantly on the basis that they enable economic growth and competitiveness, with little attention given to social or non-financial benefits. Economic growth is no guarantee of economic equality, and yet many of the risks and costs of AI are socialised.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Optimising for happiness"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Optimising for happiness</h2> <p>I find it tragic that the current public narrative pits economic growth, competitiveness, and digital sovereignty against fundamental and individual rights. However, profitability and protecting human rights do not have to be in conflict.</p> <p>In my new paper <i><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6939638">Optimising for happiness in EU technology policy to repay public subsidies for AI</a>,</i> we show how to take a different pathway in public support for AI development. We call to rethink AI policy to ensure the industry actually delivers socially beneficial products and services.</p> <p>Key to our reconceptualisation is the idea that gross domestic product (GDP) alone is an insufficient measure of social value and progress. Additional policy metrics, such as happiness and wellbeing, are needed to ensure the public actually benefits from the technology it subsidises.</p> <p>We are not alone in our efforts to re-orient policymaking towards more holistic measures of social value. Nobel Prize laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, as well as the renowned economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, have <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/8131721/8131772/Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi-Commission-report.pdf">long criticised</a> the “limits of GDP as an indicator of economic performance and social progress.”</p> <p>We are standing at a crucial juncture where <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/The-great-datacentre-backlash-The-industry-response">backlash against the AI industry</a> and frustration with public policy is understandably growing globally.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Socially beneficial by design"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Socially beneficial by design</h2> <p>I still strongly believe that AI can be a force for good. But AI is not socially beneficial by default - it must be consciously designed to be socially beneficial. The AI industry’s guiding principle should be to create a technology that demonstrably increases people’s happiness and wellbeing, drawing on decades of research from the cognitive sciences about these concepts.</p> <p>Policymakers should likewise incorporate this principle into decisions about future support for the industry. Specifically, when policymakers are deciding whether subsidies should be granted or extended for the AI industry, they should require companies to predict measurable benefits for public happiness and hold them accountable for delivering on them.</p> <p>In Greek myth, Perseus was smart enough to not take his divine benefactors for granted. He eventually returned all the gifts that were bestowed on him. He paid particular tribute to Athena by giving her the head of Medusa which the goddess now proudly wears on her chest armour.</p> <p>We should start expecting AI companies to do the same. It is important to understand that AI companies would not be successful without the public’s support. Our data, our land, our electricity, our water and our weakened fundamental and individual rights all help support the AI industry.</p> <p>It is past time that the public receives a technology that is truly socially beneficial, and not simply economically valuable, in return for its investment.</p> </section> The public is in all but name a shareholder of AI companies - it is time that the public receives socially beneficial technology in return for its investment https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/strike-protest-1-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-public-deserves-socially-beneficial-technology-in-return-for-its-AI-investment Wed, 08 Jul 2026 05:52:00 GMT <p>The Scottish National Party’s (SNP) national council has passed a motion to freeze all new <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">datacentre development</a> in Scotland, which would create a constitutional and policy challenge to Westminster’s artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure ambitions and a political paradox for likely incoming prime minister Andy Burnham.</p> <p>The motion, passed recently by the SNP council and now headed to the Scottish Parliament, calls for a temporary cessation of datacentre projects that have not yet received planning permission.&nbsp;</p> <p>SNP councillor Lesley Backhouse, who attended the national council meeting, described the current pipeline of proposals as “extreme overdevelopment” and said she supports “the local community and their endeavours to prevent this from happening”, according to the <em>Guardian</em>.</p> <p>The resolution lands at a moment when the UK government has doubled down on <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366620800/Data-dive-UK-governments-2030-datacentre-capacity-targets-look-shaky">datacentres as critical national infrastructure (CNI)</a>. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has designated datacentres as essential services <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-security-and-resilience-network-and-information-systems-bill-factsheets/data-centres">under the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018</a>. Datacentres with a rated IT load of 1MW or more will fall in scope, bringing mandatory security and resilience duties.</p> <p>For Burnham, the contradiction with his political brand is thrown into relief. He has talked about “taking power out of the centre” and devolving authority to regions and local areas – a philosophy he has championed during his tenure as mayor of Greater Manchester.&nbsp;</p> <p>But the Westminster machine he stands to inherit treats datacentres as nationally significant infrastructure that must be built, and fast, to keep the UK in what ministers frame as the global AI race.&nbsp;</p> <p>That, said Bill McCluggage, who was director of IT strategy and policy in the Cabinet Office and deputy government CIO from 2009 to 2012, should be what guides Burnham.</p> <p>“A new Burnham government should reconcile localism with national priorities by recognising that datacentres are now critical national infrastructure,” said McCluggage.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Concerns raised by APRS [Action to Protect Rural Scotland] about electricity demand, water use and environmental impact deserve to be taken seriously as they demonstrate why Scotland needs strategic planning rather than either a blanket moratorium or a free-for-all.”</p> <p>McCluggage added that if current proposals place unacceptable pressure on the grid, the answer would be to phase development alongside investment in new generating capacity, transmission networks and water infrastructure rather than a blanket ban on new planning applications.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Conservative peer Chris Holmes said: “Datacentres are essential not only to the UK AI story, but also to the economic growth imperative. The government must decide to act to resolve the energy cost crisis, determine the most advantageous locations, drive forward the AI growth zones and attract the talent to work in and around these new foundries for our future.”</p> <p>He added: “These datacentres need to be right-sized for the function and the workload they will deal with locally. If the government gets it right, this will drive growth at a local, regional and additive nation level.”</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Structural clash"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Structural clash</h2> <p>But the planning frameworks on either side of the border make the clash, to some extent, structural. Scotland operates a fully devolved planning system, governed by its own legislation. Under its National Planning Framework 4, datacentres classified as “green data centres” are designated as national developments that give them a privileged position in the planning hierarchy. But the term “green data centre” remains undefined.&nbsp;</p> <p>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://aprs.scot/data-centre-map/">pipeline of proposed projects</a> tells its own story. Many of the developments cited as evidence of a datacentre land grab in Scotland exist only as pre-application notices or environmental impact assessment screening requests. They do not yet have planning consent and may never secure grid connections at the scale developers claim. It is well established in the industry that datacentre developers routinely bank land and publicise plans that remain, in practice, speculative.</p> <p>The motion before the Scottish Parliament draws heavily on analysis published by Action to Protect Rural Scotland, the countryside charity that has led the campaign against unchecked datacentre expansion. In December 2025, APRS and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland wrote to planning minister Ivan McKee calling for a pause on all datacentre applications until a strategic approach and strict environmental standards are established.</p> <p>APRS has listed 24 hyperscale datacentres at various stages of the planning process, with a combined energy demand it reckons at 6,230MW – a figure larger than Scotland’s entire winter peak electricity demand of just over 4GW. Three-quarters of that demand comes from planning applications lodged by a single developer, Apatura.</p> <p>The SNP motion also references 24 hyperscale projects. Computer Weekly has requested a copy of the SNP council motio, but had not received a response by the time of publication.</p> <p>Not all of those projects will materialise at the scale claimed, but the motion represents the first instance of a devolved administration preparing to use planning autonomy to push back directly against Westminster’s centralised AI infrastructure drive.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Good growth tests"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Good growth tests</h2> <p>One possible path through the impasse lies in what might be termed a “good growth” test. Datacentre developers seeking planning fast-tracks could be required to demonstrate tangible social value, such as <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366621202/Bradford-datacentre-with-heat-reuse-gains-planning-consent">connection to local heat networks</a>, upgrades to grid infrastructure that benefit surrounding communities, or binding commitments to water stewardship.&nbsp;</p> <p>McCluggage suggested an approach along these lines.&nbsp;“Scotland has a unique opportunity to lead the UK and Europe by showing how digital infrastructure can be delivered responsibly,” he said.</p> <p>“Prioritising suitable post-industrial and brownfield sites, where power and water infrastructure already exists or can be upgraded more efficiently, would help regenerate former industrial communities while protecting more sensitive locations,” he added.</p> <p>“Environmental concerns should shape better projects and better planning, but they should not prevent Scotland from building the digital infrastructure that will underpin its future economy. The challenge is not whether to build datacentres, but how to build them in the right places, at the right pace, and with the supporting infrastructure already planned.”</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentres and planning</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366620801/UK-datacentre-focus-shifts-to-M62-and-points-north">UK datacentre focus shifts to M62 and points north</a>: Barbour ABI data shows 8GW of total datacentre pipeline with most big projects in the north and Scotland, while London and the M4 corridor account for about 25% of projected capacity.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366620800/Data-dive-UK-governments-2030-datacentre-capacity-targets-look-shaky">UK government's 2030 datacentre capacity targets look shaky</a>: Analysis of UK datacentre capacity – current and projected – finds DSIT’s 2030 target for 6GW of AI-capable capacity currently out of reach unless operators accelerate delivery.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> As Scottish National Party council passes a motion for Scotland datacentre moratorium, Andy Burnham’s avowed ‘power to the regions’ views face strain in light of critical national infrastructure designation https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Scotland_fotolia.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645542/SNP-council-backs-datacentre-halt-and-creates-Burnham-dilemma Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT <p>The ongoing legal dispute between supermarket chain <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644902/Tesco-offloads-VMware-and-CA-software-as-Broadcom-case-rolls-on">Tesco and Broadcom/VMware</a> illustrates the challenges IT departments are likely to face if they plan to migrate to an alternative hypervisor.</p> <p>The contract dispute with VMware has led Tesco to take the decision to replace its entire virtual server estate with an alternative hypervisor by 2027. In its filing, Tesco said the timeframe of the migration has created operational and commercial risk, as well as resulting in “material cost and disruption to the business”.&nbsp;</p> <p>Tesco said it has incurred additional costs as it needed to develop or buy functionality and support interoperability that was only available on VMware. In particular, Tesco said the Veeam backup and Zerto’s data security products it uses are not currently interoperable with any other server virtualisation platforms.</p> <p>Following completion of its acquisition of VMware in November 2023, Broadcom <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366630061/Broadcom-bundles-private-AI-into-VCF-adds-security-automation">consolidated VMware products</a> into product bundles such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and rolled out subscription-based pricing.</p> <p>Some VMware customers, like Tesco, have been negatively impacted by these changes, which has not only seen them having to buy VMware products they do not use because they are included in the product bundle, but they have also seen a price hike due to licensing costs of the VMware product bundle.</p> <p>Tesco’s claim concerns a five-year contract it originally signed in 2021 for VMware and VMware support. Broadcom refused to fulfil the contract, claiming the products the supermarket chain had purchased under its original agreement were no longer available.</p> <p>While it is unclear from the legal filings which hypervisor platforms Tesco has selected, what is clear is that the product is not a like-for-like replacement, and the retailer is having to do remedial work to get it working.&nbsp;</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The AHV alternative to VMware"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The AHV alternative to VMware</h2> <p>Nutanix is among the companies that have seen an uptick in interest following the changes made to VMware following the Broadcom acquisition. The company, which established itself as a hyperconverged IT infrastructure provider alternative offering a lower cost and simplified alternative to PC servers, has spent the past few years upselling the benefit of its VMware alternative, its <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchitoperations/tip/Compare-Nutanix-AHV-vs-VMware-ESXi-in-the-hypervisor-battle">Acropolis hypervisor</a> (AHV), based on KVM open source virtualisation software.</p> <p>When asked about how much progress has been made certifying third-party products with AHV, Rajiv Ramaswami, chief executive officer of Nutanix, said: “We probably have something close to 1,500 appliances and other products that are certified today, such as the Cisco Unified Communications appliance.”</p> <p>With regards to backup, which is an area Tesco found challenging due to these products often relying on VMware application programming interfaces (APIs) for deep integration with the hypervisor, Ramaswami claimed that Veeam, Rubrik and other backup software providers are all certified work with Nutanix, as are firewalls from the likes of Palo Alto, Fortinet and Checkpoint. “We have been working with them for many years,” he said, adding that over the past 10 years, Nutanix has built out a technology ecosystem around its KVM-based hypervisor.</p> <p>He said that while Veeam has had “basic integration” with AHV for a long time, the integration was behind VMware’s, which was much more established. However, he added: “When you talk to Veeam today, it’s a very different thing. They say their integration with Nutanix is on par with VMware integration. I was with the Veeam CEO a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been building the ecosystem over time.”</p> <p>While the Tesco legal filing shows the company expects interoperability issues will eventually be resolved as software providers expand the level of integration they provide with non-VMware platforms, it is clear that this is a work in progress.</p> <p>Some products, like Veeam, provide plug-ins to enable deep integration. But the reality is that there will inevitably be choices and compromises software providers will make when deciding which of their products are certified for a given hypervisor and the level of integration they are prepared to provide. These decisions have a material impact on the ease of deployment and performance of VMware virtualisation migrations.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about VMware migrations</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366633154/OpenInfra-Summit-Europe-Migrating-off-VMware">Migrating off VMware</a>: With Broadcom’s focus on VMware Cloud Foundation subscriptions, OpenStack is being positioned as the open source alternative.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Gartner-Symposium-2025-VMware-NSX-migration-tips">VMware NSX migration tips</a>: How should organisations approach migrating off VMware NSX.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> VMware integration with third-party backup software improves performance and reduces admin. Alternative hypervisors are often less well-integrated https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/LeMagIT/hero_article/server_infrastructure_AdobeStock_271134500_smaller.jpeg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645498/Tesco-VMware-migration-shows-backup-incompatibilities Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:30:00 GMT <p>The UK government has been advised that it cannot rely on allies when it comes to guaranteeing tech sovereignty. The US administration’s decision to restrict <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/feature/Anthropic-models-foreign-national-ban-exposes-AI-dependency-risks">Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) models</a> was used in a report by the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee to show the precarious position the UK finds itself in concerning sovereign tech capabilities.&nbsp;</p> <p>The <em>Science diplomacy: Sovereignty, strategy, and the global race</em> report pointed out the shortcomings of the government’s interpretation of sovereignty as leverage – where the UK can possess a sovereign capability without owning the entire technology stack. It stated that the US government’s move to place export controls on Anthropic’s latest AI models effectively bans non-US citizens from access, and subsequently restricts access to OpenAI’s latest models to a small group of US companies and organisations approved by the Trump administration.</p> <p>The report also noted that heightened geopolitical pressure and wars in Ukraine and Iran have led Nato allies in Europe and Canada to increase defence expenditure to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP). The commercial use of AI and autonomous drone <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644104/AI-Summit-London-AIs-role-in-UK-defence">technology in warfare</a> has seen a substantial boost in venture capital for defence tech startups in the US and Europe. The report stated that investment is going into AI, quantum computing, biotech and robotics, which is driving economic growth and military dominance.&nbsp;</p> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642254/Science-Innovation-and-Technology-committee-chair-questions-UKs-tech-sovereignty-approach">Chi Onwurah, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee</a>, said: “The UK is in the premier division of science and the premier division for diplomacy, but we don’t know where we stand in the field of science diplomacy. As geopolitics is turned upside down and the world becomes increasingly competitive, we must be able to leverage our world-class science and research to advance our diplomatic and economic goals. Without a clear plan, the government will be unable to achieve this.”</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> The government needs a realistic plan to achieve sovereign capabilities in critical areas or risk having its access cut off at the whim of its partners </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Chi Onwurah, Science, Innovation and Technology Committee</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>The report warned that the UK government has not articulated a coherent strategic framework setting out priority partners, technologies or intended outcomes of its science and tech partnerships, while its approach to specialisation in key sectors such as space and quantum remains unclear.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>Like other reports that have covered challenges in growing UK startups, this report blames a lack of specialist funds, a lack of growth-stage lead investors, and the size of the UK market for promising scientific and technological breakthroughs to seek commercialisation overseas.</p> <p>“Alongside this lack of strategy and limited ability to commercialise, the UK’s traditionally open approach to international collaboration has not been matched by a sufficiently robust framework for managing the associated risks, and the government’s approach to research security does not currently provide a sufficiently clear or effective framework to protect UK intellectual property and safeguard research from exploitation by hostile actors,” the report stated.</p> <p>According to Onwurah, the lack of a clear strategy undermines the UK’s tech sovereignty. “There is a global race for sovereignty in technologies like AI, whether the government recognises it or not, and leverage may not be sufficient to achieve this. The government needs a realistic plan to achieve sovereign capabilities in critical areas or risk having its access cut off at the whim of its partners,” she said.&nbsp;</p> <p>“I hope the incoming administration will learn from the mistakes of its predecessors and move quickly to create a clear plan for how it will work internationally on science and technology. Without this, we risk falling even further behind in the global race for science and technology capability, undermining our economic prosperity and national security.”&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about UK tech sovereignty</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/ezine/Computer-Weekly/Tech-nationalism-The-need-to-build-and-protect-UK-digital-sovereignty">Tech nationalism</a> – the need to build and protect UK digital sovereignty: We delve into why the Open Rights Group thinks it is high time the UK government had a formalised strategy.</li> <li>MPs call for UK government to back <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644347/MPs-call-for-UK-government-to-back-sovereign-IT">sovereign IT</a>: Amendment to the UK’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill calls for the government to publish a ‘digital sovereignty strategy’ to promote domestic technology.</li> </ul> </div> </div> The UK government cannot rely on allies. Instead, it must sort out startup funding and do more to build out a full tech stack https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Chess.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645224/US-Anthropic-restrictions-dent-UK-tech-sovereignty-ambition Mon, 06 Jul 2026 19:01:00 GMT <p>It’s the last cool morning before the most recent heatwave settled over the UK. It’s grey and a little close. My lodgings sit on the edge of Bristol city centre, where the Luftwaffe’s best efforts, then de-industrialisation and the demise of empire, mark the urban fabric.</p> <p>That manifests as past-its-best post-war concrete offices, impossibly tidy new builds, crumbling red-brick remnants, and scrubby plots of no-build. As I wait, a chapel dated 1857 stares across the road at a huge new red-brick student block while wire-grid temporary fencing separates spaces. Weeds push through block paving. Trainers hang over a telegraph wire.</p> <p>My Uber arrives, and Ai Jun from <a href="https://www.incredibleindia.gov.in/en/dadra-and-nagar-haveli-and-daman-and-diu/diu">Diu in Gujarat</a>&nbsp;drives me through morning traffic to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Data-centre-capacity-planning">nLighten’s BRS1 datacentre</a> at Aztec West.&nbsp;</p> <p>We pass warehousing, building sites, cranes, the fortress-like walls of former dockside buildings, and the ubiquitous galvanised three-pronged pressed steel spiked fencing. Traffic pinches between rusty railway bridges and small 1960s industrial units, before escaping onto the M32.</p> <p>Graffitied red-brick factories give way to terraced housing, suburban semis, an Ikea, a shopping mall, then countryside – fields, wooded hillsides – as the road loops out of the city past Bristol Parkway, via the M4, and off via the A38 to Aztec West Business Park.</p> <p>I muse over whether it was named for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture">the famously bloodthirsty people</a> of Central America or the 1970s chocolate bar. Modern offices in glass and aluminium sit well-spaced and connected by manicured pavements. It looks like the US, except there are people walking. Also, some geese cross the road.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The great and the good"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The great and the good</h2> <p>The datacentre entrance is a rolling steel gate and concrete wall. A security guard checks names against a list as cars pass in. I am the only arrival on foot. Inside, more than 100 people fill the reception – consultants, commercial agents, press, council representatives, the local great and good. A handful wear nLighten gilets. Two stalls offer swag – chocolate bars; water bottles – while a well-engineered example of datacentre cooling pipework (pictured) sits on display. The scrum for croissants and coffee is ferocious, but I can’t eat a thing. The B&amp;B proprietor convinced me to go full-English against my better judgement.</p> <p>Our opening host gathers the crowd with PR tones. “We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of effort upgrading this fabulous datacentre that you’re in today,” he tells the room.</p> <p>He frames nLighten’s pitch in the language of the moment: sovereignty; sustainability; legacy reuse. “We are in the vanguard because we are taking legacy datacentres, we are refurbishing them, we are upgrading them, we’re improving their capability.”</p> <p>An engineering type gives us the technical introduction, and the history of the building emerges. “This site was built in around 1995 for Royal Sun Alliance, so it’s been here quite a while,” he explains.</p> <p>The insurer ran it for roughly five years before “a French IT consultancy” took over – then Proximity, and now nLighten.&nbsp;</p> <p>“We’ve given this building a lot of life,” he continues. “We spent somewhere in the region of £15m today on this facility. We literally stripped the roof off the building and rebuilt it. There’s a 25-year warranty on that roof now, so that gives you some idea of the intent and the lifecycle of this building going forward.”</p> <p>Chillers, UPS units and generators have all been replaced with datacentre capacity moving from 750kW to 1.2MW, with a 5MVA <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643673/Datacentre-dive-AI-factory-power-draw-changes-the-grid-calculus">grid connection</a>, and design work underway for further expansion. “An existing site is the greener site,” our engineer notes. “It means that embodied carbon is within that facility. We’re not investing more in carbon. We’re developing a site that exists and we’re doing it in an efficient way.” The target power usage effectiveness (PUE) across the estate is 1.3.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Equipment hums, tour guide burrs"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Equipment hums, tour guide burrs</h2> <p><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643633/Datacentre-dive-From-rust-belt-to-megawatt-AI-factory">Tours are assigned</a> by lanyard number. Richard is nLighten’s regional datacentre manager, and guides our group with a West Country burr. He has been on this site since 2020, and speaks about the building with the quiet ownership of someone who has watched it transform.</p> <p>We descend to the lower ground floor – an engineering space the same size as the white space above. Everything that powers and cools the data hall sits here, hidden from customers who will never need to see it. UPS units, cooling panels, switchboards – the underbelly of the operation, accessible without ever entering the data hall itself.</p> <p>Richard stops in front of one of the UPS units – a 1.2MW modular system, lithium-battery-based, and at this moment almost silent. Load-dependent; it waits for the equipment upstairs to call on it. An identical unit sits on the other side of the building. The modular design means individual modules can be swapped out for maintenance without losing the whole UPS. “For us, it’s all about efficiency,” says Richard. “It’s all about keeping PUE down.”</p> <p>He gestures towards a capability not yet in use, but built into every UPS nLighten purchase: grid stabilisation. “If the grid is struggling, we could feed back a bit,” says Richard.&nbsp;</p> <p>The cooling system is entirely new. When the roof came off, the old coolers went with it. In their place, chillers equipped with turbo-core refrigeration compressors now sit at the rear of the building, fed from a <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644373/Data-dive-Dodgy-data-derails-datacentre-water-debate">closed-loop chilled water system</a> through new pipework beneath the engineering floor.&nbsp;</p> <p>“We don’t use any water,” says Richard. “The water inside stays inside.” An engineer who serviced the chillers recently reported they have run in free-cooling mode for 80% of their operating hours, including during the full-load test. Even on a day touching 20 degrees, the compressors are idle. “The old building’s water bill has just stopped and gone away,” says Richard. “The only water we use now is on you guys making tea and coffee today.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Build it and they will come"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Build it and they will come</h2> <p>We climb to the upper ground floor and enter the data hall. “We’ve recently installed 42 new racks ready for quick deployment,” says Richard. The racks – 800mm by 1200mm, 47U – stand in two cold-aisle containment rows. Cool air pushes up through a raised floor, directed through the racks and into the hot aisle where we stand. Structured cabling runs overhead to two “meet-me” rooms positioned in opposite corners of the hall, providing diverse routing through separate carriers.&nbsp;</p> <p>The current IT load sits at about 180KW – “quite low at the moment”, Richard acknowledges – but the hall is built to scale towards 1.2 megawatts. The cold aisle registers 24 degrees. Pressure sensors monitor airflow; if a rack blanking plate was out of place, it would register immediately.</p> <p>For now, the racks are mostly empty, waiting. But the plumbing tells a different story. Tap boxes for direct-to-chip liquid cooling are already installed, ready to serve anything from half-rack deployments to high-density compute.&nbsp;</p> <p>“You could have a megawatt sat in this aisle,” notes Richard, gesturing along the row. The chilled water infrastructure has enough tap-off points to feed every aisle when demand materialises. The real constraint, he observes, is not the white space, but the mechanical plant – chillers and generators cannot shrink the way rack densities can grow.</p> <p>Outside, in front of the chiller units, the control panel tells us the only energy being consumed is by the fans, pulling air across the coils to reject heat from the returning water loop. The mechanical compressors sit idle.&nbsp;</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Heatwave on the way"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Heatwave on the way</h2> <p>When temperatures climb into the 30s, the system can run in hybrid mode – part free-cooling, part mechanical (refrigeration) – and switch to full mechanical if required. It is rated to cope up to 40 degrees. For an operator who spent years managing a building designed when UK summers rarely broke 22 degrees, this is the difference between a restless night and a quiet one. “My phone’s never off,” says Richard. “If it rings at 2am, I tend to jump out of bed a bit quick.”</p> <p>Resilience is layered throughout. N+1 redundancy applies to power and cooling: two chillers, each capable of carrying the full 1.2MW load independently. Two UPS units. Two generators that can get power to busbar in 18 seconds. Some 72 hours of fuel storage sits on site, with a refuelling guarantee within four hours.&nbsp;</p> <p>Richard’s team of four engineers trains weekly and runs quarterly mains-fail transfer tests. “There are two reasons for doing that,” he explains. “One, to make sure it works. That’s always a good thing. And two, for my engineers, it’s good to keep them up to speed. If they go a few months and they haven’t done it and it does happen, it’s good that it’s fresh in their mind.”</p> <p>The building, as Richard puts it, was “built like a battleship”. The difference is what now sits inside it. “To see it where it was to where it is now is a phenomenal change,” he says. “You just take an older building and bring it back to life, really.”</p> <p>An insurance company’s disaster-recovery bunker from the mid-1990s has been retooled for edge computing, sovereign data and HPC-ready density – without a single tree felled or cubic metre of concrete poured for new foundations.</p> <p>The story here for nLighten is, in an industry gripped by headlines about gigawatt-scale hyperscale campuses, what can be done with what already stands.</p> <p>The tour is over. Inside, the chillers hum quietly. The empty racks wait. The geese are still on the road. Muhammad (who came from Malaysia when he was five) Ubers me to Temple Meads, and we chat about politics and food.&nbsp;</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about datacentres</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643633/Datacentre-dive-From-rust-belt-to-megawatt-AI-factory">Datacentre dive: From rust belt to megawatt AI factory</a>: We visited Terawulf’s Lake Ontario 750MW datacentre development. Photos and recordings weren’t allowed, so we took notes and wrote them up in more traditional ways.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644373/Data-dive-Dodgy-data-derails-datacentre-water-debate">Data dive: Dodgy data derails datacentre water debate</a>: The Government Digital Sustainability Alliance reports that we are on track for a massive water supply shortfall. The dataset it used suggests not. We look at the datacentre water use debate.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> We visit nLighten’s BRS1 datacentre, and travel from gritty city centre fringe to a high-tech overhaul that makes the case for reusing legacy infrastructure over new construction https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/rms/computerweekly/nlighten-dcpiping-hero.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Datacentre-dive-Inside-nlightens-Bristol-edge-datacentre Mon, 06 Jul 2026 06:45:00 GMT <p>On 12 June 2026, the US Department of Commerce issued an emergency directive that forced Anthropic <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644826/US-suspension-of-Anthropic-models-prompts-AI-sovereignty-calls">to suspend foreign nationals</a> from using Claude Fable 5. It came suddenly with no exemption for allied nations and no appeals process. One jurisdiction flipped a switch, and the world’s access to a leading piece of frontier artificial intelligence (AI) went dark.</p> <p>The ban, which the US has only <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr42623e1do">now begun to lift</a> after weeks of diplomatic fallout, marks more than an AI safety controversy. It crystallises a question that European and UK policymakers have been racing to answer through an unprecedented wave of legislative and industrial interventions. Namely, when a single nation controls the infrastructure upon which your economy, public services and national security depend, what does sovereignty actually mean – and can you build it quickly enough?</p> <p>This article examines whether Europe and the UK can <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-sovereignty-all-just-a-case-of-Trust-me-bro">close a digital sovereignty gap</a> that decades of dependence on American technology have rooted in the continent’s economic foundations. Drawing on economic data, historical precedent and academic analysis, it looks at whether catch-up remains possible and tests that against three prerequisites demonstrated by successful late-developer states in modern history. These are unified strategic funding at a scale that matches the competition, the willingness to use internal markets as an exclusionary weapon, and the humility to copy rather than insist on innovating.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-techGDP-800px-f.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-techGDP-800px-f_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-techGDP-800px-f_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-techGDP-800px-f.jpg 1280w" height="436" width="559"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Urgency in Brussels and Westminster"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Urgency in Brussels and Westminster</h2> <p>The recent flurry of policy announcements suggests that Brussels and Westminster are gripped by some urgency.&nbsp;</p> <p>The European Union’s (EU) <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643862/EU-unveils-full-stack-sovereignty-package-to-build-Euro-tech-muscle">Cloud and AI Development Act</a> – part of the European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan – proposes a single EU-wide sovereignty framework with four escalating levels of autonomy, from basic physical data residency (Level 1) through to full software supply chain transparency and demonstrated independence from third-country interference (Level 4). The act also targets a threefold <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638951/Power-supply-issues-flagged-as-major-growth-inhibitor-of-European-datacentre-market">expansion of European datacentre capacity</a> by the 2030s, backed by streamlined permitting and improved access to energy, land and financing.</p> <p>Alongside this sits the Chips Act 2.0, which shifts the EU’s semiconductor strategy from supply-focused investment to demand cultivation. Its predecessor mobilised more than €52bn in public and private investment and created an estimated 46,000 jobs. The sequel introduces “grand challenges” aimed at industrial development of AI-critical chips, demand accelerators to speed products to market, and state aid provisions for first-of-a-kind fabrication projects not yet present in the Union.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643862/EU-unveils-full-stack-sovereignty-package-to-build-Euro-tech-muscle">EU Open Source Strategy</a> completes the triad, mandating public administrations to act as anchor users of open source alternatives – cloud, workplace tools, secure email – and developing a sovereign “Open Internet Stack” designed to displace proprietary foreign software from government workflows.</p> <p>The UK, operating outside EU mechanisms but facing identical structural vulnerabilities, has assembled its own arsenal. The £1.1bn <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643844/Starmer-announces-sovereign-compute-strategy-amid-11bn-chip-investment">sovereign compute strategy</a> – announced by technology minister Liz Kendall with the declaration that “AI is the defining currency of economic and hard power in today’s world” – allocates £750m to a national AI supercomputer, including £400m for specialist chip procurement. A £120m AI hardware innovation programme funds domestic chip design and testing. The <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366641682/UK-governments-50m-sovereign-AI-fund-bids-to-commercialise-research">£500m Sovereign AI Unit</a>, launched in April 2026, aims to become the primary investment hub for high-potential UK AI startups, while a separate £500m <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642362/Government-funds-self-learning-AI-company">sovereign AI fund targets growth-stage companies</a> with investments between £1m and £10m.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The key levers of digital sovereignty"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The key levers of digital sovereignty</h2> <p>These measures can be grouped into four strategic levers that the EU and UK are pulling simultaneously:</p> <ol class="default-list"> <li><strong>Supply-side industrial policy</strong> – the state directly funding physical infrastructure to bypass market reliance on foreign hyperscalers.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Procurement-led sovereignty</strong> – using public sector purchasing power to set market standards and force technical requirements on suppliers, from open source mandates to local data residency.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Regulatory shielding</strong> – establishing legal frameworks, such as France’s SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification and Germany’s BSI C3A two-tier cloud autonomy criteria, that force foreign providers to meet sovereignty definitions or face exclusion from government workloads.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Innovation ecosystem support</strong> – targeted grants and investment funds designed to cultivate homegrown intellectual property.</li> </ol> <p>The cumulative investment is substantial on paper. But it must be measured against a global technology economy in which the imbalance of power is not only large but structural.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-top20cos-800px-f.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-top20cos-800px-f_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-top20cos-800px-f_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-top20cos-800px-f.jpg 1280w" height="421" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Data shows US digital dominance"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Data shows US digital dominance</h2> <p>Computer Weekly analysis of audited annual reports and regulatory filings, benchmarked against World Bank and IMF GDP statistics, reveals that US-headquartered technology firms generated combined global revenues exceeding $2tn in their most recent fiscal years.&nbsp;</p> <p>Microsoft alone posted $281.7bn – more than the combined tech revenue of every major firm headquartered in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, and rivalling Germany’s entire listed tech sector.&nbsp;</p> <p>Amazon Web Services (AWS) contributed $128.7bn in cloud infrastructure revenue, Alphabet $402.8bn, and Nvidia – the semiconductor designer whose graphics processing units (GPUs) power the AI revolution – $130.5bn.</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-scatterEUUK-800px-f.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-scatterEUUK-800px-f_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-scatterEUUK-800px-f_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-scatterEUUK-800px-f.jpg 1280w" height="363" width="558"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>By contrast, Europe’s largest technology companies operate at a fraction of that scale. Germany’s SAP, the continent’s flagship enterprise software firm, reported $41.6bn. France’s Dassault Systèmes reached $7.4bn. The UK’s ARM – a globally significant semiconductor intellectual property (IP) designer – generated $4bn.&nbsp;</p> <p>No European-headquartered company operates a hyperscale cloud infrastructure business at a level competitive with AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. The delivery model that underpins the modern digital economy – elastic, on-demand compute – is almost entirely American-owned.</p> <p>Tech GDP as a percentage of national output tells the same story from a different angle.&nbsp;</p> <p>The US tech sector accounts for 7.1% of GDP against a $30.5tn economy. The UK sits at 5%, Germany at 5.1%, France at 5.2%. The gap appears modest until measured against the countries that have already caught up. South Korea registers 12.3% tech GDP – the highest of any advanced economy – built on Samsung Electronics ($233.3bn), SK Hynix ($68.7bn), and a state apparatus that for decades directed credit to specific firms through state-directed credit mechanisms. Taiwan hits 12% on the back of TSMC ($122.4bn) and Foxconn ($213.7bn), companies incubated under conditions of strategic state protection and explicit government coordination.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Data sources and methodology</h3> <p>The selection of companies for this analysis was designed to map the foundational architecture of the global digital economy, and gave us a “global tech power list” of 80 firms.&nbsp;</p> <p>For US firms, we identified the top 20 by annual revenue, which established a baseline threshold of approximately $20bn.&nbsp;</p> <p>For international markets, we applied this same $20bn revenue floor as a criterion where possible. But, because the prevalence of enterprise-scale technology firms varies significantly by region, we had to transition to selecting the leading firms in each country that operate within the tech ecosystem.&nbsp;</p> <p>While our primary focus remained on foundational ICT suppliers – ie, companies that provide the cloud, software, semiconductor and enterprise infrastructure on which the digital economy relies – we have included major electronics manufacturers and telecommunications providers. This reflects that in modern tech supply chains, the boundary between pure-play digital and physical manufacturing and connectivity layers has become porous.</p> <p>Data on corporate revenue is derived from audited annual reports and regulatory filings. National GDP statistics are sourced from international benchmarks provided by the World Bank and IMF. Tech GDP estimates represent combined economic value added by the ICT sector, calculated based on sources that include the OECD, Eurostat, national government reports and the US International Trade Administration.</p> </div> </div> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The state as driver of development"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The state as driver of development</h2> <p>What distinguishes the South Korean and Taiwanese outcomes from European aspirations is not merely the scale of investment but the political architecture that directed it.&nbsp;</p> <p>Andrew Wright, a lecturer at Hult International Business School who specialises in international political economy, frames the distinction through the lens of historical catch-up dynamics.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Germany and America overtook British leadership through protectionism and state promotion of industry,” notes Wright. “As a result, they developed giant monopolistic – or, more accurately, oligopolistic – corporate giants. Scale was important then and still is.”</p> <p>The post-war generation of East Asian developers – Japan, then Korea, then Taiwan – intensified this model.&nbsp;</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysis-Antony-Adshead-HeatmapRevenueByRegionAndSector-800px-f.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysis-Antony-Adshead-HeatmapRevenueByRegionAndSector-800px-f_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysis-Antony-Adshead-HeatmapRevenueByRegionAndSector-800px-f_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysis-Antony-Adshead-HeatmapRevenueByRegionAndSector-800px-f.jpg 1280w" height="270" width="559"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> <p>“These countries used much more extensive state support, protection, and, frankly, overall direction,” Wright explains. “All of these states borrowed and stole technology, promoted giant firms, protected home markets and largely copied advanced nations while benefiting from lower costs.”&nbsp;</p> <p>The pattern is so consistent that the economic historian Alexander Gerschenkron identified a typology: the later the catch-up project, the greater the role played by the state. China, the most recent entrant, represents the apotheosis of this trajectory – state capitalism at continental scale, with Alibaba ($137.3bn), Tencent ($104.5bn) and Huawei ($126bn) now rivalling Western incumbents on revenue and increasingly on technological capability.</p> <p>But the East Asian precedent carries a complicating element for Europe.&nbsp;</p> <p>Cheap labour – the mechanism that enabled Korea and Taiwan to drive export-led growth while protecting domestic markets – is structurally unavailable to advanced European economies.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Europe cannot emulate this in competing with the US,” Wright argues. The more relevant parallel lies further back in history. “In the late 19th century, low wages were not a major factor in the rise of the US and Germany. It was more about state tutelage, the growth of the giant corporation, and the systematisation of research and development.”</p> <figure class="main-article-image full-col" data-img-fullsize="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-allCos-800px-f.jpg"> <img data-src="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-allCos-800px-f_mobile.jpg" class="lazy" data-srcset="https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-allCos-800px-f_mobile.jpg 960w,https://www.computerweekly.com/rms/computerweekly/CW-analysys-Antony-Adshead-allCos-800px-f.jpg 1280w" height="902" width="560"> <div class="main-article-image-enlarge"> <i class="icon" data-icon="w"></i> </div> </figure> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Responding at scale hampered by fragmentation"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Responding at scale hampered by fragmentation&nbsp;</h2> <p>This distinction proves critical when evaluating the three prerequisites against Europe’s present position.</p> <p>The first prerequisite – unified strategic funding at a scale that matches American finance – faces the immediate obstacle of fragmentation. The UK’s £1.1bn sovereign compute programme and the EU’s €52bn Chips Act mobilisation represent genuine political commitment, but they operate through entirely separate governance structures, procurement pipelines and strategic priorities.&nbsp;</p> <p>South Korea’s central bank literally directed private banks to extend credit to designated firms – a system based on the precedent of Japan's "Window guidance" system – but that required a concentration of financial authority no European institution – not the European Investment Bank, not the European Central Bank, not any national treasury – currently possesses.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Only a hugely concentrated strategic mechanism of funding can compete with what the Americans now have available to them,” Wright observes, “partly due to their past and partly due to the sheer size of American finance.” He adds: “Current efforts to seed little developmental pockets, or the shoots of venture capitalism, cannot possibly compete.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Using the market: The Airbus example"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Using the market: The Airbus example</h2> <p>The second prerequisite – the willingness to use Europe’s internal market as an exclusionary weapon – has a proven precedent.&nbsp;</p> <p>Airbus, the European aerospace consortium, now competes directly with Boeing after decades of state-backed development that American free-market economists once derided as incapable of picking winners.&nbsp;</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> I would see Airbus as a model. If I was a pro-EU policy maker, I would stop American private companies from feeding off funds and contracts of the European states, and replace those relations with European contractors </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Andrew Wright, Hult International Business School</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>“I would see Airbus as a model,” says Wright. The logic transfers directly to digital infrastructure: “If I was a pro-EU policy maker, I would stop American private companies from feeding off funds and contracts of the European states, and replace those relations with European contractors.”</p> <p>Elements of this approach are already visible. The UK’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has proposed a “cloud consumption dashboard” to publicly track contract awards by supplier, mandating SME spending targets and break clauses in contracts with foreign providers. The Procurement Act 2023 is being updated to require public sector bodies to prioritise open source solutions. The EU’s four-level sovereignty framework creates a ratcheting mechanism by which providers must demonstrate progressively deeper independence from third-country jurisdiction to qualify for sensitive workloads.</p> <p>The counter-current, however, is powerful. Decades of procurement decisions have entrenched American hyperscalers within European public sector architecture.&nbsp;</p> <p>The network effects are self-reinforcing. The more departments standardise on a single cloud platform, the harder and more expensive exiting becomes.&nbsp;</p> <p>Wright describes this as “path dependence” – the accumulated weight of past choices that makes deviation costly even when the strategic case for change is overwhelming. “Europe has existed under American tutelage, allowing US firms access and the development of dominance,” he notes. “Breaking out of this is costly and difficult.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Copy, don’t innovate"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Copy, don’t innovate</h2> <p>The third prerequisite – the willingness to copy rather than insist on innovating – cuts against Europe’s self-conception as a centre of original research.&nbsp;</p> <p>Wright points to a historical irony. “Much of the technology that has fed the American machine was originally developed in Europe. Yet Europe has often been unable to control and commodify it, or build the giant dominant firms that emerged from it,” he says.&nbsp;</p> <p>The East Asian developers faced no such cultural constraint. “They rarely innovated; they mostly copied,” says Wright.</p> <p>The EU Open Source Strategy represents an implicit acknowledgement of this logic – building a catalogue of open alternatives that, by definition, replicate proprietary functionality rather than inventing from scratch. The Gaia-X federated infrastructure initiative creates interoperability standards designed to let local European providers link services in direct competition with non-EU hyperscalers, again a copying-and-competing model rather than a leapfrogging one.&nbsp;</p> <p>Whether European political culture can sustain this pragmatic posture – building what works rather than what is original – remains an open question.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Digital sovereignty at a crossroads"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Digital sovereignty at a crossroads</h2> <p>The question that faces European policymakers is not whether digital sovereignty is desirable but whether the window for achieving it remains open.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Fable 5 episode demonstrates that dependency is not a theoretical risk that can be managed through contractual fine print. It is an operational reality that can be triggered by a foreign government’s unilateral decision, with consequences that cascade through every service, every department, and every citizen who relies on infrastructure they do not control.</p> <p>The revenue data suggests the structural gap is widening, not closing. American technology firms grow at rates European competitors cannot match, fuelled by a venture capital ecosystem, a stock market depth and a military-industrial procurement pipeline that Europe has no equivalent of.&nbsp;</p> <p>The US, Wright argues, operates what economic and political sociologist Fred Block called the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329208318731">hidden developmental state</a>” – less visibly directive than the East Asian model but no less effective, leveraging defence spending, public sector contracts and deep state-corporate integration to sustain technological dominance while maintaining the rhetorical posture of free enterprise.</p> <p>The conditional verdict, then, is that Europe and the UK can catch up – but the path demands a level of political coordination, financial concentration and strategic pragmatism that the continent has rarely mustered outside of wartime mobilisation or the Airbus project.&nbsp;</p> <p>The measures now being deployed are genuine in intent and substantial in scale by historical European standards. Whether they are sufficient in speed and coordination to overcome decades of accumulated dependency is the question on which the next decade of European digital sovereignty will turn.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about data sovereignty and cloud infrastructure</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-cloud-data-sovereignty-all-just-a-case-of-Trust-me-bro">Is cloud data sovereignty all just a case of ‘Trust me, bro’?</a> An analysis of whether contractual sovereignty guarantees from hyperscale cloud providers offer meaningful protection or merely cosmetic reassurance to European customers.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/This-rise-of-the-splinternet-Data-sovereignty-risks-and-responses">The rise of the splinternet? Data sovereignty risks and responses</a>; We look at the political, legal, and economic risks that data sovereignty fractures pose to global digital infrastructure, from sanctions-driven cloud lockouts to jurisdictional conflicts.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> As the US demonstrates it can wield an AI ‘kill switch’, the EU and UK unleash a wave of sovereign tech measures. Can state-led industrial policy bridge a $2tn revenue chasm? https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/German/article/acquisition-takeover-adobe.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645336/Data-dive-Kill-switch-and-catch-up-can-Europe-close-the-sovereignty-gap Thu, 02 Jul 2026 06:15:00 GMT <p>Nordic countries are witnessing a surge in new <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252507218/Private-equity-cash-fuels-Nordic-datacentre-growth">datacentre investments</a> as the region becomes a more popular destination for cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure capital.</p> <p>The wave of investment activity is happening against the backdrop of governments implementing or considering stricter licensing laws to <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-power-crunch-How-energy-constraints-reshape-datacentre-strategy">curb facility size and energy use</a> as national powers grids come under increased strain to accommodate greenfield projects.</p> <p>Despite the wave of legislation and strategies to manage the growth of the datacentre sectors in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, the new and proposed Nordic government restrictions are unlikely to deter international industry players from continuing to invest. The Nordic region offers cost-saving advantages in both the availability of cold climate energy-cooling and access to cheap electricity from renewable sources.</p> <p>Growing concerns over the sharp uptick in applications for licences for hyperscale datacentres in Finland has resulted in the liberal-conservative Kokoomus (National Coalition) party advancing a legislative proposal. This, if enacted, would require large datacentres to obtain matching new power generation capacity before connecting to the national electricity grid operated by Fingrid.</p> <p>The issuing of building permits for hyperscale datacentres must be more closely controlled to prevent both draining energy resources and driving up electricity costs for households, said Heikki Vestman, a Kokoomus MP and chairman of the Eduskunta’s (National Parliament) Constitutional Law Committee (CLC).</p> <p>“The opportunities for investment and economic growth that datacentres present are welcomed but cannot be allowed to take place at the expense of households and Finnish industry. The energy required by these hyperscale facilities is ever-increasing and must be controlled by laws and rules that better regulate the growth of the datacentre sector in Finland,” said Vestman.&nbsp;</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Stricter rules"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Stricter rules</h2> <p>The legislative proposal pitched by Kokoomus is supported by the Social Democrats (SDP), Finland’s main opposition party. Pinja Perholehto, the SDP’s deputy chairman, said future datacentres will need to contribute in a positive way to the Finnish economy rather than drain finite energy resources.</p> <p>“Stricter obligations need to placed on the operations of new and existing datacentres, especially in terms of their energy consumption. Large datacentres should ideally contribute to reliable electricity production. Greater flexibility and energy efficiency measures must also be demanded of greenfield projects and existing large facilities,” Perholehto said.</p> <p>The Finnish government is about to change the conditions for datacentres and how the sector is treated under tax laws. Under legislation set to be rolled out on 1 July 2026, electricity used in datacentres will move from Finland’s lower industrial electricity tax category to the standard tax bracket.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> Greater flexibility and energy efficiency measures must also be demanded of greenfield projects and existing large facilities </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Pinja Perholehto, Social Democratic Party of Finland</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Under the tax change, datacentres will be moved from the lower Class II electricity tax (0.05 cents/kWh) to the standard Class I rate (2.24 €cents/kWh). The new measure will effectively increase the electricity tax for the sector by 2.19 cents/kWh, substantially altering operating costs. The tax measure is projected to increase the annual tax revenue yield from the datacentre sector by around €47m.</p> <p>The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (MEAE) produced a sector-specific report for the government ahead of the tax category changes. The report estimated that datacentre projects under construction, or at the consideration stage, could eventually require more than 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity. This figure is equivalent to the combined output of the two reactors at Finland’s Loviisa nuclear power facility. Finland’s electricity generation, from all power plants, totaled 9,700-MW in 2025.&nbsp;</p> <p>The concerns over national grid capacity have elevated against the number of hyperscale in the pipeline. Microsoft finalised a land purchase deal on June 7, to acquire 470 acres of land for a potential datacentre development located adjacent to the west coast city of Vaasa and the neighbouring municipality of Mustasaari. The land-bank borders on the Gulf of Bothnia, the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Microsoft’s partnership plan"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Microsoft’s partnership plan</h2> <p>Microsoft’s decision to adopt a partnership approach to developing and expanding its datacentre assets in Finland has the potential to serve as a template for its competitors in the sector. The American tech giant is collaborating with the state power group Fortum to feed waste heat captured from its future datacentres in Southern Finland into district heating networks serving the towns of Espoo, Kauniainen and Kirkkonummi.</p> <p>The three datacentres under construction will form part of Microsoft’s multi-facility cloud region project in Southern Finland, said Teemu Vidgrén, Microsoft’s general manager in Finland.</p> <p>“Finland is becoming an increasingly important country for Microsoft, and this means we are committed to investing here for the long term. We will build partnerships that link our datacentre projects to the country’s energy transition,” Vidgrén said.</p> <p>Microsoft’s partnership with Fortum, Espoo, Kauniainen and Kirkkonummi aims to deliver waste heat from the three datacentres to supply 40% of the heating demand for 250,000 district heating customers in the three towns, in a collaboration that is estimated to cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by 400,000 tonnes.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Potential tax revenues"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Potential tax revenues</h2> <p>A joint study co-funded by the Finnish Data Center Association (FDCA) and the Confederation of Finnish Industries (CFI) projects that investments in datacentres, excluding ICT equipment, could reach €12bn in Finland by 2030 and generate €1.7bn in tax revenue for the state during the construction stage. The study’s projections are based on greenfield investments financed by indigenous and global players including Google, Microsoft, AtNorth, Verne and Equinix.</p> <p>The FDCA-CFI study estimated that tax revenues from the datacentre sector could exceed €400m annually from 2030 onwards. Industry turnover, the study predicts, could rise from €1bn to €4bn before 2040 as datacentre capacity climbs by 285 MW to 1.5 Gigawatt (GW) over the period 2030 to 2040.</p> <p>By contrast with Finland, Sweden’s datacentre infrastructure market was valued at €500m in 2020, rising to €900m in 2025. The sector’s market value is forecast to reach €2.5bn by 2035, based on Ministry of Finance (MoF) projections.</p> <p>The MoF anticipates a compound annual growth rate of 10.62% up to 2030 based on proposed greenfield capital investments by Mistral, Google, EcoDataCenter and a hyperscale facility project led by Telia and Brookfield. To reduce the risk of a possible capacity strain on the power grid, Sweden is expected to attach updated and significant energy efficiency as well as heat recovery and reuse conditions to all new datacentre licence applications.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="New terms and strategies for Nordic datacentres"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>New terms and strategies for Nordic datacentres</h2> <p>In Denmark, prime minister Mette Frederiksen’s centre-left coalition government is considering new legislation to tighten licence terms for new datacentres as a counter-measure to deal with a sharp rise in electricity demand. The pressure is mainly building from AI infrastructure that is placing a strain on the national power grid operated by Energinet. The government has ordered an investigation to determine if the existing capacity in the grid can support any further expansion of datacentres.</p> <p>“The situation we currently face as a small nation became so acute that the government had no choice but to open cross-party talks to find solutions. The capacity in the Danish power grid has become a scarce resource, and it will remain so for many years to come. We cannot ignore the high risks of connecting more large datacentres to the existing grid,” said Samira Nawa, Denmark’s minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities.</p> <blockquote class="main-article-pullquote"> <div class="main-article-pullquote-inner"> <figure> The capacity in the Danish power grid has become a scarce resource, and it will remain so for many years to come </figure> <figcaption> <strong>Samira Nawa, Denmark minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities</strong> </figcaption> <i class="icon" data-icon="z"></i> </div> </blockquote> <p>Norway’s National Data Centre Strategy (NDCS), launched in January 2026, introduced defined objectives and stricter protocols to govern the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366599458/Norways-datacentre-builders-focus-on-energy-efficiency">development of a sustainable and socio-economically beneficial datacentre industry</a>. The NDCS, which prioritised the need for upgraded security requirements for datacentres, is embedded in the ambitious National Digitalisation Strategy (NDS). The NDS seeks to position Norway as the world’s most digitised country by 2030.</p> <p>The NDCS sets a higher bar for greenfield datacentres in Norway. The new licence rules will require facilities to be energy-efficient and run data storage and processing based on renewable energy.</p> <p>The strategy will demand that datacentres, from small to hyperscale, capitalise on the core opportunities for energy recovery and reuse of excess heat from their operations, said Karianne Tung, Norway’s digitisation and public governance minister.</p> <p>“The new strategy treats datacentres as critical digital infrastructure that facilitates storage of Norwegian data on Norwegian soil and provide the authorities with a better overview and control of the datacentre industry,” said Tung. “Everything we store in the cloud ends up in a physical datacentre that requires space, power, technology and labour. It is critical we secure them in Norway, and that the datacentre industry is sustainable and contributes to energy savings and jobs.”</p> <p>Based on data from greenfield applications and expansion projects at existing facility sites run by operators Digiplex, Green Mountain, Bulk, Basefarm (Orange Group), Google and others, Norway’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) estimates that the datacentre sector is on course to contribute more than NOK 14bn (€1.25bn) to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026.</p> <p>According to the MoF data, new-build colocation datacentres will help to add €2.75bn to GDP by 2030. From this contribution, the MoF predicts €1.13bn in value will come from colocation, €348m from hyperscale facilities and €1.28bn from edge datacentres.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about Nordic datacentres</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li>Datacentre developers in Norway are <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366599458/Norways-datacentre-builders-focus-on-energy-efficiency">shifting their focus to energy efficiency</a>, with expected increases in taxation for those who fall short.</li> <li>Private equity companies are <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252507218/Private-equity-cash-fuels-Nordic-datacentre-growth">betting on the Nordic datacentre sector</a> as demand for services in the region accelerates.</li> <li>The latest report into trends across the European datacentre market shines a light on how <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366638951/Power-supply-issues-flagged-as-major-growth-inhibitor-of-European-datacentre-market">power supply issues are affecting growth</a>.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> Strains on national power grids in the Nordic region are pushing the region’s governments towards tougher regulation https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Datacentre-management-fotolia.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645164/Nordic-datacentre-investments-surge-amid-tightening-licence-rules Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:36:00 GMT <p>An eight-to-12-week pilot that stretched to six months. Highly sensitive employee data – health records, criminal offence information, details of vulnerable individuals – processed by <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/resources/Artificial-intelligence-automation-and-robotics">artificial intelligence</a> (AI) across more than 50,000-plus current and former staff. A decision not to consult the workforce whose data was being sucked into the platform. No competitive evaluation of alternative suppliers. And a second tranche of questions the <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645018/Met-pushes-ahead-with-major-facial-recognition-expansion">Metropolitan Police</a> now refuses to answer.</p> <p>These are the fault lines that run through the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) for its <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643883/SIT-Committee-urges-Palantir-exit-in-push-to-end-US-cloud-grip">Palantir</a> Foundry pilot, a copy of which was obtained by Computer Weekly. They illustrate how a key UK police force balanced speed of deployment against governance obligations that protect officer and staff data from misuse. The way they did it raised many questions, and produced a “no comment” set of responses from the Met along the way.</p> <p>The pilot’s immediate context was the 2025 BBC Panorama documentary, <em>Undercover in the police</em>, which exposed serious cultural failings in the force. According to the DPIA, completed on 3 November 2025, the project’s explicit purpose is “to respond to the gravity of recent events and Panorama documentary on MPS Culture” through intelligence collection across a vast sweep of officer and staff data.</p> <p>The pilot, formally titled the Culture Standards and Integrity Ecosystem (CSIE), forms part of the Met’s New Met for London (NMfL) reform plan. It adopts what the DPIA describes as a “public health approach to reducing complaints, corruption and misconduct”, analysing data across three tiers of prevention: primary, secondary and tertiary. The stated ambition is to create “an enterprise data observatory containing cultural, professional standards and organisational health intelligence”, built on a schema of approximately 90 metrics drawn from 90 data sources.</p> <p>In response to our first round of questions to the Met, a spokesperson-attributed statement said: “Our pilot with Palantir allows the Met for the first time to bring together data it already lawfully holds in one place to identify potential standards, welfare or cultural concerns. It also allows us to identify early issues so we can act more fairly and consistently, ensuring officers receive support or face appropriate action before problems escalate.”</p> <p>The speed at which the pilot delivered results was dramatic. Within a week of <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644346/NHS-trusts-operating-on-fewer-patients-with-Palantir-FDP-warns-Foxglove">Palantir’s roll-out</a>, according to a BBC news article in April, the Met’s Professionalism Directorate had identified hundreds of potential misconduct breaches and several alleged criminal offences, including abuse of authority for sexual purposes, fraud, sexual assault and misconduct in public office. Two officers were arrested, with a further two suspended and under investigation. Some 98 officers were being assessed for misconduct, with another 500 receiving prevention notices after being flagged for abusing the IT duty-rostering system.</p> <p>The Met spokesperson added: “The Met is stepping up its use of data and technology to strengthen professional standards, root out misconduct and increase public confidence.”</p> <p>But the DPIA – a 34-page document obtained by Computer Weekly – reveals significant gaps between the operational speed of the deployment and the governance infrastructure designed to protect the rights of the individuals whose data it processes.</p> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The high-risk processing the DPIA admits"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The high-risk processing the DPIA admits</h2> <p>The DPIA’s initial screening questions confirm the project was set to process special category data, criminal offence data, data concerning children under 13 and other vulnerable individuals, and data on a large scale. It includes tracking, monitoring and surveillance in public areas, the use of artificial intelligence (AI), automated decision-making and profiling of individuals. The assessment explicitly acknowledges the processing as “high-risk”.</p> <p>In section Q2.25, the DPIA states that “the processing of personal data” would be considered “potential high-risk processing” in that it concerned “special category data, criminal offence data and vulnerable individuals … In particular, sensitive health data will be processed by collating and analysing the data for trends related to adverse sickness leave patterns.”</p> <p>The scale is substantial. The assessment covers more than 50,000 current employees plus some former employees. It notes that “the processing involved in Foundry is heavily focused on the personal data, and actions, of MPS employees”, warning that if data were exfiltrated, it “could cause harm” and identify individuals.</p> <p>Despite this risk profile, the DPIA acknowledges that multiple security and governance controls remained incomplete at the time of documentation. Automated access controls were marked “partially implemented”. Access logging was “planned but not yet in place”. Performance tests had not been planned. The system’s capability to manage data review, retention and disposal had “not been conducted”. No documentation existed for the flow and transformation of data throughout its lifecycle.</p> <p>Computer Weekly received the DPIA on 3 June. The covering email described it as “an evolving document so continues to be updated”. The latest date entry in the DPIA is 31 March.&nbsp;</p> <p>The senior responsible officer’s comments, dated 3 November 2025 – the date the DPIA was first written – acknowledge this tension directly: “While full testing has not been completed in the usual manner (i.e. deploying Palantir on a pre-production system first), I understand this risk has been partially mitigated through testing in situ. This reflects a balance between maintaining the speed of the pilot and ensuring appropriate safeguards. I am satisfied with the testing to date.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The consultation gap"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The consultation gap</h2> <p>Perhaps the most striking single entry in the DPIA appears at question Q2.29, which asks whether the project team planned to consult with individuals whose personal data would be processed. The response was: “Considered and not required.”</p> <p>This determination was made despite the project processing sensitive health data, sickness absence patterns, professional standards records from the Centurion system – a widely used platform for recording public complaints, conduct allegations, grievances and civil claims – and information relating to disabled employees, stop and search interactions, and custody-related issues.</p> <p>The Met’s own data protection officer (DPO) subsequently recommended precisely the opposite approach. In the DPIA’s Advice and Recommendations section, dated 31 March 2026, the reviewer states: “I recommend transparent communication with the individuals whose data will be processed. I recommend that a document explaining the purpose and scope of this project is produced and disseminated to MPS employees (staff and officers). I recommend producing an FAQ document with any concerns that may be raised by MPS employees (staff and officers).”</p> <p>The DPO also highlights a purpose limitation concern: “The original purpose of collecting data for each system mentioned in the System Requirements spreadsheet is different to the envisaged purpose of this pilot. As such, this constitutes a change in purpose which will require telling MPS employees (staff and officers) of the change, as well as the lawful basis for processing.”</p> <p>Computer Weekly put questions to the Metropolitan Police Federation regarding its consultation with the Met, the transparency of communications to staff, and concerns around data retention. No response was received.</p> <p>What we do know is that Matt Cane, general secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation, told the BBC in April that staff “were never informed that the upgrade would include the deployment of Palantir’s artificial intelligence”.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">The timeline that kept slipping</h3> <p>What was planned as an 8-to-12-week pilot became a six-month project with no fixed endpoint.</p> <p><strong>14 October 2025:</strong> Contract with Palantir begins, due to end 13 January 2026.</p> <p><strong>3 November 2025:</strong> DPIA completed; connectivity with first MPS system (EDP) in place.</p> <p><strong>18 December 2025:</strong> MPS data injection into Palantir goes live.</p> <p><strong>8 January 2026:</strong> Pilot period extended to 31 March.</p> <p><strong>9 January 2026:</strong> DPIA notes: “Palantir are not in a position to actually start a pilot as more data is being ingested. User testing to start once MVP is available from 30/1/2026.”</p> <p><strong>13 January 2026:</strong> Original contract end date – data due for deletion.</p> <p><strong>22 January 2026:</strong> DPIA notes: “The MVP is planned for 1st April.”</p> <p><strong>4 March 2026:</strong> Pilot extended to end of April 2026.</p> <p><strong>12 March 2026:</strong> DPIA notes: “The MVP is not available to be tested yet whilst more data is being ingested and dashboards are still being developed.”</p> <p><strong>31 March 2026:</strong> Contract extended to 30 April 2026; DPO and DDAT reports submitted.</p> </div> </div> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="Alternatives that were not evaluated"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>Alternatives that were not evaluated</h2> <p>The DPIA states that alternatives to Palantir Foundry were “considered but not viable”, yet it names no other suppliers, provides no evaluation criteria, and offers no comparative assessment. The Met’s own in-house platform, the Enterprise Data Platform (EDP), is described in the DPIA as “an inhouse platform that ingests data”,&nbsp;with systems integration and data ingestion “ongoing under phase 2 of the Data, AI and analytics capability programme”.</p> <p>The DPIA notes that Palantir offers “more enhanced capability than what EDP is currently able to do, and this pilot is validating that”. It also says Palantir was “faster and was able to produce an MVP [minimum viable product] to the timeframe that we needed. The AI capability offered by Palantir Foundry is not available with the EDP.”</p> <p>The EDP was not yet capable of delivering the AI-driven analytics that Foundry could provide – but it was also conceived as the central architectural layer through which data would flow. The DPIA itself flags a “risk of lock-in with multiple data sources routing outside of EDP”, suggesting the Foundry pilot diverges from the Met’s own data infrastructure strategy.</p> <p>A properly competitive process could potentially have evaluated other AI analytics providers in or alongside the EDP framework, but no such process is documented.</p> <p>When Computer Weekly asked the Met to provide a list of other suppliers evaluated, the evaluation criteria used, and the business case detailing why Palantir was chosen, the force declined to engage further.</p> <p>The references to a missing minimum viable product are significant. As of mid-March 2026 – more than four months into a pilot originally scheduled to conclude in January – the core system had not reached a testable state. Throughout this period, data continued to flow into the platform.</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="The questions the Met did not answer"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>The questions the Met did not answer</h2> <p>Computer Weekly submitted a second tranche of questions to the Met, addressing the gaps identified in the DPIA. These covered the absence of a competitive tender, the justification for sharing “not essential” data under the Bank Mellat proportionality test, the status of incomplete security controls, the evaluation of jurisdictional risk given Palantir’s status as a US-headquartered company, and the final disposition of MPS data held by Palantir after the pilot.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">What is the Bank Mellat test?</h3> <p>The Bank Mellat test is a four-stage proportionality framework established by the UK Supreme Court to determine if an action that restricts fundamental rights is legally justifiable.</p> <p>In the context of data protection – specifically the processing or monitoring of employee data – this test requires employers to demonstrate that their actions strike a fair balance between their business interests and the privacy rights of their staff.&nbsp;</p> </div> </div> <p>The Met’s response was a single sentence, declining to engage: “Following further conversations, we are not going to provide this level of detail and have nothing further to add to our previous statement.”</p> <p>Several of these unanswered questions carry significant legal and operational weight.&nbsp;</p> <p>The DPIA’s own DPO section recommends that further questions be addressed, specifically: “What will Palantir do with the data after the trial ends (i.e., will Palantir retain a copy of the data or will any MPS data held by Palantir in relation to this trial be securely deleted)? If Palantir is planning to retain MPS data at the end of the trial, what is Palantir’s intended use of the data? If Palantir is planning to use MPS data to train its models, we assume that Palantir positions itself as an independent controller for this further processing.”</p> <p>The DPO also notes: “It is not currently clear what will happen to the data at the end of the trial. If Palantir is planning to retain/use the data for its own purposes, it is important that we understand this so that we are able (a) to assess and articulate Palantir’s lawful basis for any further processing and (b) to be transparent with officers/staff about the fact that this will happen.”</p> <p>On data minimisation, the DPO states: “As per the spreadsheet provided to do with System Requirements, there is a considerable amount of data to be shared with Palantir. This raises conflict with this principle, particularly around adequacy (the data collected should be sufficient to fulfil the intended purpose), relevance (only data that is directly related to the purpose should be processed) and necessity.”</p> <p>The DPIA itself acknowledges at Q4.12 that data sharing with Palantir goes beyond the strictly necessary: “Due to the nature of the Palantir Foundry solution, and the broad nature of the use cases for the CSIE Palantir pilot, we are sharing additional data with the supplier in order to support the more holistic views/insights, etc for more proactive investigations.”</p> <p>And on the fundamental question of purpose limitation, section Q5.06 is unambiguous. Asked whether personal data is being used strictly for the purposes for which it was originally collected, the response is simply: “No, the data is used for additional purposes not originally specified.”</p> </section> <section class="section main-article-chapter" data-menu-title="A precedent for UK policing"> <h2 class="section-title"><i class="icon" data-icon="1"></i>A precedent for UK policing</h2> <p>The Met’s Palantir pilot does not exist in isolation. It sits within a broader landscape of UK police forces operating under the Police Digital Service and National Enabling Programmes model, predominantly on Microsoft-centric cloud infrastructure. The decisions made in this pilot – about procurement, transparency, data minimisation and jurisdictional exposure – are likely to reverberate across other forces considering similar deployments.</p> <p>To what extent the DPIA’s internal recommendations have been resolved is unknown. The DPO calls for a clear policy on data handling, training and awareness for staff using Foundry, auditing to enable full traceability and accountability, and clarity on what happens to data once the pilot ends.&nbsp;</p> <p>The Bank Mellat proportionality assessment notes that “if the objective is preventing misconduct, then analysing certain relevant data may be rationally connected”, but warns that “transferring all data we hold is not rationally connected unless we can show why each category of data is necessary”.</p> <p>The Met’s refusal to engage with questions about alternative suppliers, jurisdictional risk and data disposal leaves significant governance questions unanswered.&nbsp;</p> <p>For a pilot that processes the personal data of more than 50,000 individuals – including health information, criminal offence data and information about vulnerable people – the gap between the speed of deployment and the maturity of safeguards is the story the DPIA tells, even when the Met will not.</p> <div class="extra-info"> <div class="extra-info-inner"> <h3 class="splash-heading">Read more about the Metropolitan Police and Palantir</h3> <ul class="default-list"> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366645018/Met-pushes-ahead-with-major-facial-recognition-expansion">Met pushes ahead with major facial-recognition expansion</a>: Metropolitan Police set to roll out live facial recognition in the West End and Soho, but critics say police are ‘rushing ahead’ without regulation.</li> <li><a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366643883/SIT-Committee-urges-Palantir-exit-in-push-to-end-US-cloud-grip">SIT Committee urges Palantir exit in push to end US cloud grip</a>: A Science, Innovation and Technology Committee report contains recommendations that would radically alter UK public sector IT, procurement and relationship with hyperscalers if adopted.</li> </ul> </div> </div> </section> We examine the Data Protection Impact Assessment for the Metropolitan Police’s Palantir Foundry pilot, and the governance gaps it exposes around surveillance, transparency and staff consultation https://cdn.ttgtmedia.com/visuals/ComputerWeekly/Hero%20Images/Police-Metropolitan-Fotolia.jpg https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366644966/Met-Palantir-pilot-The-DPIA-that-raises-more-questions-than-answers Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:45:00 GMT 60 editor@computerweekly.com