Blackstone invests £10B to build Europe's 'biggest AI datacenter' in UK

Source: The Register

The facility, touted as the “biggest AI datacenter” in Europe, is slated for construction near Blyth, Northumberland, at the site of the now defunct BritishVolt battery plant. The project is expected to bring more than 4,000 jobs to the region, 1,200 of which will be related to the construction of the site.

“New investment such as the one we’ve announced with Blackstone today is a huge vote of confidence in the UK and it proves that Britain is back as a major player on the global stage and we’re open for business,” Keir Starmer said in a canned statement.

Alongside the £10 billion to fund the datacenter, Blackstone has also committed to investing £110 million to upskill workers to run the facility and upgrade transportation infrastructure in the region. However, we expect the bulk of Blackstone’s investment will go to AI accelerators, though it remains to be seen whose chips will power the facility. While Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell accelerators might seem the natural choice due to the maturity of the GPU giant’s software and hardware ecosystem, Intel and AMD have grown far more competitive in recent generations.

AMD’s Instinct MI300-series accelerators have gained considerable momentum in recent quarters, with the House of Zen forecasting the GPUs will drive $4.5 billion in revenues in 2024. Meanwhile, Intel this week officially launched its Gaudi3 accelerators, which boast performance competitive with Nvidia’s venerable H100s, while undercutting them on price. Whatever accelerators end up powering the facility, Blackstone will be able to afford a lot of them.

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