Will AI Growth Zones deliver local value or just national headlines?

Across Europe, governments are acting with increasing urgency to position themselves at the forefront of the AI race. Earlier this year, France announced the selection of over 35 sites dedicated to supporting AI development - an ambitious move to ensure the country is ready for the infrastructure demands of emerging technologies. The UK is also stepping up, with the government’s proposal for AI Growth Zones signalling a clear intention to support innovation at scale and secure a competitive edge.

The idea behind AI Growth Zones is the right one. It recognises that supporting AI is about more than just compute capacity - it’s about building thriving local ecosystems where innovation, talent, infrastructure, and investment can come together. Crucially, the government seems to understand that these zones should not simply be clusters of data centres, but dynamic spaces that connect to wider regional priorities, from research and skills to enterprise and regeneration. This is a smart, forward-looking approach.

However, it is difficult to ignore that sustainability receives only limited attention in the current plans. The ambition feels modest compared to the scale of the challenge. It seems we are risking moving backwards, treating sustainability as a tomorrow’s problem and compromising on an issue that will inevitably resurface if not addressed today. The UK simply does not have the luxury to rush through deployment without thinking strategically about future energy needs, regional grid capacity, and the long-term integration of new infrastructure into the overall system. Being thoughtful and deliberate is ultimately as valuable as being fast.

Equally important is the question of societal acceptance. The data centre sector, while increasingly vital, continues to face significant scrutiny. Concerns about energy consumption, environmental impact, water use, and limited direct employment benefits are growing. The success of AI Growth Zones will depend not just on technical capacity and flexibility of the planning law, but on the perception of these concerns - will data centre operators and public stakeholders see them as a barrier to progress, or an invitation to do things better?

As enthusiasm for AI builds, there is a shared responsibility, both for government and industry, to address major blind spots - territorial planning and societal integration. The success of AI Growth Zones will depend not only on technological excellence but on the ability to align projects with local priorities. For policymakers, that means looking beyond short-term economic gains and setting expectations high. For a data centre operator, that means engaging early with host communities, designing infrastructure that fits the place it is in, and ensuring real benefits flow back to local people. Rather than seeing authorities and residents as stakeholders to be managed, they should be embraced as partners in shaping the environmental and social value vision.

Done right, digital infrastructure can enable much more than just compute - it can support brownfield regeneration, unlock energy synergies, and become a catalyst for local innovation. That’s the promise of AI Growth Zones if we take a “data centres in context” approach. These projects should be shaped around the specific strengths, constraints, and ambitions of each area, not imposed from above. We should be moving from infrastructure in place to infrastructure of place - designed with and for the communities they aim to serve.

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