One signal

UK datacentre developers now have to navigate responsibilities split across at least three government departments, Resultsense reports, drawing on The Register’s account of a parliamentary hearing. The split followed the abolition of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Business, Innovation, Science and Trade handles datacentre construction policy; telecoms sit with Culture, Media and Sport, while energy and local planning bring further departments and councils into the picture. The Register’s verdict: the lines may be clear, but the process is hardly simple. For projects tied to AI computing, a tidy organisation chart is of limited use if nobody can unblock a grid connection. Microsoft withdrew from a planned UK AI supercomputer project in October after power could not be secured, the report says. Resultsense also reports that a minister told MPs a much-cited £45 billion figure for modernising public-sector technology was an estimate of long-term productivity gains, not a target or cashable savings figure.

Discuss: Should the UK give datacentre developers one government point of contact, or would that just hide the same grid and planning problems behind a simpler org chart?

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