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CX Tech has submitted plans for a £16.5 billion technology campus at Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway. The proposal covers a 1GW data centre-led development on a former nuclear site.
The application seeks Planning Permission in Principle for what would be one of the UK's largest digital infrastructure projects. The scheme includes up to 162,000 square metres of data centre space across eight buildings at the Chapelcross site near Annan.
The campus would be built over about eight years. It would include the power, cooling, utilities, access and digital infrastructure needed to support the data centre buildings, along with complementary industrial space and a dedicated training centre.
Chapelcross has a long industrial history and was previously home to one of Scotland's first commercial nuclear power stations. The site also retains strategic energy infrastructure from its earlier use, including an adjacent 132kV Grid Supply Point.
The development has been designed as an operationally net-zero campus under the UK Green Building Council framework. Residual embodied carbon emissions from construction would be measured and addressed through reduction measures and approved offset mechanisms, while operational emissions would be limited through renewable electricity and energy-efficient design.
The energy strategy centres on renewable generation in the surrounding area. CX Tech said it has identified about 1GW of potential renewable generation within 5km of Chapelcross and about 2GW within 20km, with direct and private-wire connections to wind, solar and biomass generation under consideration.
Grid infrastructure would provide balancing and resilience alongside that approach. Energy storage is also expected to form part of the future energy mix where technically and commercially appropriate.
The cooling design aims to limit water use, an issue that has come under increasing scrutiny as larger data centres are proposed in more markets. The current design uses closed-loop, non-evaporative air cooling, with operational water consumption expected to be roughly equivalent to that of four homes per data centre building each year.
Scotland's climate also forms part of the case for the project. Cooler conditions can support longer periods of free cooling, helping to reduce the energy needed for temperature control in large computing facilities.
Scale and jobs
The investment would rank among the largest private sector proposals put forward in the South of Scotland. Construction could support about 750 jobs, with a further 450 permanent roles once the campus is fully developed.
The proposals also include about 40 apprenticeships for each year of construction. The training centre is intended to support skills development in AI, digital infrastructure, engineering and low-carbon technologies, alongside wider supply-chain opportunities in the region.
CX Tech is acting as strategic development partner for the site after being appointed by NDA Properties, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The arrangement reflects the continued repurposing of former energy and industrial land for new infrastructure projects.
Demand for large data centre sites has increased as operators look for locations with substantial power access, room for expansion and planning conditions suited to long-term development. Former industrial sites with established grid links have become an important part of that search, particularly for projects linked to AI and cloud computing.
Graeme Anderson, Chief Executive, CX Tech, said: "Global demand for AI and high-performance computing is accelerating rapidly, but delivering the next generation of digital infrastructure is about much more than simply building additional data centre capacity. The challenge is bringing together scale, power, sustainability, resilience and the ability to grow over the long term.
"Chapelcross gives us the opportunity to create that platform. We are proposing approximately 1GW of potential capacity on a major brownfield energy site, delivered in phases and designed from the outset around renewable power, highly efficient operation and exceptionally low water consumption.
"We are not designing this around a single operator or a single point in the market cycle. Our ambition is to create an infrastructure platform capable of evolving with the requirements of AI, cloud and high-performance computing, giving major operators the opportunity to deploy and expand at significant scale.
"There is also a bigger opportunity here for Scotland. The country has exceptional renewable energy resources, a climate well suited to efficient data centre operation and a strong engineering and technology base. As global demand for compute continues to grow, those advantages can position Scotland to compete for a much greater share of international digital infrastructure investment.
"We believe Chapelcross can be an important part of that proposition and demonstrate how the next generation of large-scale compute infrastructure can be delivered differently."