AI Pathfinder Announces £18.4bn Investment in UK AI Data Centres
AI Pathfinder, a newly launched UK data centre developer, has announced plans to invest up to £18.4 billion in large-scale AI infrastructure across England and Scotland, positioning the UK as a major hub for sovereign AI capability.
The company plans to invest £3.4bn in a new data centre in Northamptonshire, with the first phase expected to come online by December 2025. This initial deployment will include an AI Factory powered by Dell and NVIDIA, designed to support advanced, high-performance AI workloads.
In parallel, AI Pathfinder has committed up to £15bn to a flagship development at the i3 industrial park in Ayrshire, Scotland. Operations are expected to begin from 2026, with significant GPU capacity planned from day one. The site is designed as a 1GW AI campus, with long-term potential to scale to 1.5GW, making it one of the largest AI infrastructure hubs in Europe.
Unlike traditional data centre models focused on hyperscale leasing, AI Pathfinder intends to deliver AI-as-a-Service directly to public and private sector clients, supporting secure, sovereign AI adoption across government, industry, and public services.
AI Pathfinder is understood to be linked to Salamanca Group, a UK-based investment firm with significant experience in large-scale infrastructure and industrial projects.
While funding structures and investment timelines have not yet been disclosed, the announcement represents one of the largest proposed AI infrastructure investments in the UK
