Tony Blair Institute: UK needs bit barns to lead in AI deployment, not training
- Reference: 1754310032
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/04/tony_blair_institute_says_uk/
- Source link:
This is the message from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which warns that the UK needs to "take infrastructure seriously" to remain competitive in the AI era, and fix systemic problems that cannot be resolved overnight.
This will require time, investment, and for the government to make building datacenters a national strategic priority, says the former PM's non-profit organization.
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In its [2]report , Blair's think tank says Brtain lacks the resources to keep up with the US, China and the Gulf States, which are all pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into vast, energy-hungry datacenters for AI training. The UK doesn't have the money, the available land or the energy resources to follow suit, it adds.
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Instead, the focus must be on deploying and widely adopting AI, "demonstrating to the world how to effectively apply it across sectors including health, education, government, defence and science." This is where the economic gains will be found, the report says, in seeking ways to bolster productivity, improving public services and driving innovation across the economy. The jury is out on if or how this can be achieved.
Following this strategy will still require considerable investment in AI infrastructure, a point the UK government already acknowledged in its [5]AI Opportunities Action Plan unveiled at the start of the year, plus the Compute Roadmap detailed recently.
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The Tony Blair Institute says these steps are not enough, and claims "the situation is now dire" as the UK has placed AI at the centre of its growth and security goals, yet lacks sufficient infrastructure to carry it off. At the current build pace, the country is unlikely to meet its 2030 target of 6 GW of AI-ready capacity on UK soil, it says, and blames planning and permitting delays, constraints with the national grid and soaring industrial energy costs for holding up progress.
This is backed up by a separate report from [7]fDi Intelligence (part of the Financial Times) which claims the UK could face up to a 5 GW shortfall in the datacenter compute capacity it needs. This is based on an analysis commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) and assumes supply will nearly double from 1.8GW today to 3.3GW, while there is expected to be demand for between 5.1 GW and 8.5 GW.
Britain will struggle to meet the 6 GW target, as most of the current 1.8G W of bit barns are concentrated around London and not optimized for AI.
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The Tony Blair Institute recommends the government follow a strategy of "accelerated diversification," which means quickly building out resilient infrastructure. This will require it to make changes to attract new investment in a way that reduces risk, spreads capability regionally to improve resilience and supports a strong domestic ecosystem – easier said than done.
Other recommendations are that the government must ensure the National Energy System Operator (NESO) integrates bit barn demand (as estimated by DSIT) into national plans and builds to support this in "dynamic updates."
However, the [9]AI Energy Council , formed last year, was tasked with ensuring this, but it is operating under a traditional British government cloak of secrecy, [10]declining to reveal what has been discussed or any decisions made during the two meetings it has so far held.
The report instead recommends a team of AI and datacenter experts be formed within NESO to support demand planning and accelerate AI integration in the energy system.
Unsurprisingly, it also recommends amending the planning process to issue decisions within an eight-month period, and using ministerial call-in powers for high-investment datacenter projects and grid investments.
These are actions the government has already embarked upon, designating these sprawling server farms as critical national infrastructure (CNI), which allows developers to [11]override any local opposition to datacenters being built in an area. Categorizing them as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) allows developers to apply to the central Planning Inspectorate (PINS) for planning permission, [12]bypassing the local authority altogether .
Other noteworthy recommendations are that the government should adopt a strategy to develop a series of new gigawatt nuclear power station projects, as well as reforming the way nuclear is regulated in the UK both to expedite building while also reducing costs.
The Tony Blair Institute report also suggests some actions similar to those already taken by the Trump administration, such as changing the rules to allow co-location of AI datacenters with energy generation sources, plus identifying [13]government land that could be used for bit barns and offering this to private developers.
All of these suggestions sound like a big ask for any UK government, which are characterized by sclerotic indecision and glacial decision making at the best of times. The current administration is currently struggling with chronic budget constraints and the urgent need to invest in a range of other areas as well.
The Tony Blair Institute concludes with a warning that if the UK fails to build, it will fall behind. If it gets it right, it has a real opportunity to lead in AI, by gaining the expertise in how to apply it and build the right infrastructure to support it.
Despite the calls to action, there are growing concerns that all this investment in AI might turn out to be inflating a hype bubble. A [14]report from McKinsey & Company identifed widespread unease because nobody is really sure what the level of AI demand is going to be in future, while other research found that generative AI has had [15]no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation so far, despite the billions poured into building and training the models.
The accuracy of agentic AI recently fell under the spotlight when Gartner forecast that [16]40 percent of projects will be ditched by the end of 2027 due to rising costs, unclear business value or insufficient risk controls.
[17]Amazon is spending a boatload on AI but investors are impatient for results
[18]Datacenter lobby blows a fuse over EU efficiency proposals
[19]Zuck tries to justify AI splurge with talk of 'superintelligence' for all
[20]US agencies log nearly 9x more GenAI use cases in 2024 - but deployments stall
[21]Devs are frustrated with AI coding tools that deliver nearly-right solutions
Last year, Baidu chief Robin Li described the AI sector as being in an "inevitable bubble," similar to the dot-com bubble at the end of the 1990s, while a report from [22]Lenovo found that only 4 of 33 AI proof-of-concept projects it surveyed actually progressed into production, equating to an 88 percent failure rate.
Still, the UK government and the Tony Blair Institute remain unperturbed by the generative AI naysayers. ®
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[2] https://institute.global/insights/tech-and-digitalisation/sovereignty-security-scale-a-uk-strategy-for-ai-infrastructure
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJDZB9JAbqbT_UXxyh6iigAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/uk_government_ai_plans/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aJDZB9JAbqbT_UXxyh6iigAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/cb79c0c5-af54-4dd4-8c4e-3185d932c233
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aJDZB9JAbqbT_UXxyh6iigAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/10/uk_ai_energy_council_meets/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/24/britains_ai_datacenter_plans_face/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/objections_to_datacenter_builds_cni/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/uk_datacenter_planning_rules/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/25/doe_ai_infra/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/ai_dc_investment_gamble/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/29/generative_ai_no_effect_jobs_wages/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/29/ai_agents_fail_a_lot/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/amazon_earnings_q2_2025/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/30/datacenter_lobby_eu_efficiency/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/30/meta_ai_superintelligence/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/29/us_government_identified_ai_use/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/29/coders_are_using_ai_tools/
[22] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/explore/lenovo-ai-nomics-idc-cio-playbook-2025
[23] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Keep control of our data
If we do not do this at home then it is just more UK data that is taken by the USA - [1]talked about this morning .
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/04/when_hyperscalers_cant_safeguard_one/
Are we sure ?
This so-called 'think' tank hasn't secretly been replaced with 'A.I.' ?
TBI,
Given this was the same Tony Blair Institute that so ineptly [1]railed against Net Zero recently I was already donning my keyboard warrior outfit to do battle. But... I agree with them entirely, dammit.
It's daft for the UK to try and outrace Microsoft, Amazon and Google in their attempt to boil the worlds oceans to give us an articificial yes-man we can question, but never entirely trust. And I agree it goes from funny to disastrous thanks to uk.gov swallowing the hook given to them by the AI firms to put their products at the heart of UK government. That will be a nice little earner for someone.
Whether anyone will listen to the Tony Blair Institute is a different matter. As a man he made a lot of good decisions and one catastrophic one, but that's what politicians are remembered for. I suspect it will be the same for his institute; yes, they might be right on this one but why would we listen to them in general?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/29/phasing-out-fossil-fuels-doomed-to-fail-tony-blair-climate
Re: TBI,
It's unrealistic for the UK to compete with the USA, Germany and Japan in building cars, instead we must become world leaders in using cars. I call on the government to subsidise everyone in the UK to buy 3 pickups and demonstrate to the world their dynamic use in dynamically being dynamic.
T. Blair at the Future Of Road Development institute
Re: TBI,
" I suspect it will be the same for his institute; yes, they might be right on this one but why would we listen to them in general?"
Doesn't matter whether we listen, agree or disagree. Blair is a still an influential figure, and the people this report is aimed at are fellow politicos, policy makers and shapers. Doubt the idea came from within the Blair Institute, I believe it will have been an idea carefully placed by the lobbyists of big tech and bit barn developers. They (and we) know that the UK isn't going to train any new AI, so no loss in sharing that as an insight, but what these companies want is for government to sweep away all the planning rules, to offer energy supply guarantees and probably change the energy pricing system so that the costs of new capacity get dumped on domestic users.
And with the huge circle jerk that is government and industry thinking on AI, there's a good chance they'll get what they want. You don't think that anybody from DSIT or DESNZ reads these forums, or listens to the likes of us?
Re: TBI,
"do you think anyone from DSIT or DESNZ reads these forums?" - well, as you say they're involved in their own circle jerk. No need to join ours :-)
Credentials?
How many CS graduates or engineers work at/for this "institute"?
This was no help: https://institute.global/experts
Re: Credentials?
CS grads and engineers? How unseemly. All anyone needs to run a country is a firm grasp of the classics.
Re: Credentials?
Most policy wonks of today seem to have studied politics, philosophy, and economics, the modern day dosser's degree.
Re: Credentials?
Modern day? It's been that way for decades.
How much is a Tony Blair opinion worth? Just ask an Iraqi
Yes Tony, you are the fount of all human wisdom and clearly have gained more knowledge of IT in five minutes than those of us who have spent decades in the business.
Just like your certainty that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction obtained from a conversation some junior operative had with a dodgy cab driver rather than listen to the results of all those tedious conventional espionage measures which had found virtually no evidence to support your messianic determination to invade somewhere or other.
Re: How much is a Tony Blair opinion worth? Just ask an Iraqi
That's precisely the point. It took a lot of expensive Oxbridge graduates in intelligence agencies and government media relations consultancies to generate that "intelligence" when AI can make up bollocks for pennies.
Delusional
UK needs more shovels to lead in a gold rush.
AI is a con.
The belief that it will magically lead to growth is complete BS.
It is technological pollution, undermining the basic benefits of computing. Toxic to anything it touches.
Let other countries throw tonnes of cash down this rabbit hole.
If Labour spend money on this rather than water, energy and the NHS, they will just lose the next election by even more votes than they already will, for censoring the internet and failing to soften the impact of Long Brexit.
Thank you Tony
Whenever I am unsure about a political issue, I see what Tony Blair and his institute have to say, then take the opposite view. I don't know how, or why this works so well, but it does.
The UK needs to train people not build bit barns.
>” At the current build pace, the country is unlikely to meet its 2030 target of 6 GW of AI-ready capacity on UK soil, it says, and blames planning and permitting delays, constraints with the national grid and soaring industrial energy costs for holding up progress.”
This reads as if the authors have brought into the bandwagon.
So someone has placed a target of 6 GW based on what? Wet finger in the air? But because they have we must feel bad about not achieving it. I suspect the problem isn’t planning etc. but that businesses haven’t even submitted plans for 6 GW of capacity. Plus it doesn’t matter how much you jump up and down, building 6GW of generator capacity and (targeted) distribution network is going to take 5+ years…
One of the laughs about HS2 and lessons from it (so far) are that in their attempts to circumvent the planning system and accelerate the project the politicians and HS2 Ltd directly contributed to and accelerated the spiralling costs. An additional lesson from HS2, is that events are highly likely to harpoon your original raison d'être. In the case of HS2, speed aka reduced journey time was a big factor to the point people totally missed technology advances which enabled people to work whilst on the move or more significantly from home.
So given it is going to take 5+ years for 6GW of AI capacity to become available people aren’t going to standstill, they are going to work around the shortage problem…
Thus it makes more sense to spend the money on training people and work within the constraints. As I said to the team on the HS2 stand this weekend, the big benefit of HS2 to date has been the training of engineers, albeit an expensive training, we now need to find opportunities for them to use their skills - does an AI bit barn need tunnel boring skills?
I'd rather the UK just let other countries deal with the problems of building new power infrastructure for data centers that I'm not sure we need, and use the proposed bit barn sites for housing instead. If we really do need a lot more datacenters, an alternative (better?) way to get them built on UK soil would be to mandate data sovereignty for UK citizens.