Plans for two new artificial intelligence data centres set to be built in Edinburgh are now being revisited and reviewed for their potentially damaging environmental impact.
So far, Shelborn Drummond Ltd’s proposed data centre, set to be built in Edinburgh Park by the old Royal Bank of Scotland, is being rescreened for an environmental impact assessment.
Apatura’s proposed data centre, near Heriot-Watt University, is also awaiting confirmation as to whether it needs a rescreening.
The Labour-run government, before this point, had not required firms to elaborate on the environmental impact of their AI data centres, in line with a government promise to lift restrictions on building AI infrastructure in the city.
The government’s relaxation around the original go-ahead aligns with their intention to make Scotland the “forefront of the UK’s technological revolution” by contributing to their AI innovations.
Evidence of government funding is evident at the University of Edinburgh.£750 million was awarded to the University in 2025 in the hope of creating a new national supercomputer that will work alongside an AI Research Resource to diagnose cancer faster and research Alzheimer’s vaccines.
However, the government has begun reconsidering the impact of AI data centres following backlash sparked by their original approval. This comes amid new information suggesting that these data centres are set to use the same amount of energy as five Edinburgh-sized cities.
Regardless of government and AI firm ambitions, however, as Ben Christman, an in-house lawyer at the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland has said, “It is vital that these effects are fully understood during the planning process, so that the council and members of the public can properly consider whether proposals for data centres should be given planning permission.”
These rescreenings on the AI data centres will be done by Edinburgh Council planning officers.
“Edinburgh Council building – geograph.org.uk – 1315978” by kim traynor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.