Power firm Drax strikes £20bn deal for an AI data centre powered by BURNING WOOD at its Yorkshire plant
Drax shares jumped 8.5% to 877p on Tuesday, making the power company the biggest riser on the FTSE 250 after the £20bn data centre deal was announced.
Brookfield will initially commit £2.5bn to the project via its joint venture with Qatar's Qai, with total investment potentially exceeding £20bn once semiconductor chips are included. The 1,000-acre North Yorkshire site has 4GW of grid access and already supplies cooling infrastructure, placing it among the very few UK locations capable of delivering gigawatt-scale data centre power directly.
Drax shares jumped 8.5% to 877p on Tuesday morning, making it the biggest riser on the FTSE 250.
The first 100MW phase is targeted for early 2028, scaling to 500MW by 2031, subject to planning approval.
Chief executive Will Gardiner says the project could become 'one of the largest data centres in the UK', supporting northern reindustrialisation.
