TL;DR
Dan Tomlinson, the UK’s growth minister, has told the Financial Times that Britain will not ease off on AI after Democrats promising tighter rules and slower data centre construction swept the US midterms. He argued the UK can avoid a “big polarising debate on data centres”, keep treating them as “essential infrastructure”, and that the real problem is the opposite of America’s: “The pace of investment here is, frankly, too low.”
The minister’s case
Tomlinson’s argument is that the two countries are at different points. In the US, voters have pushed back against a building boom; in Britain, he said, “build-out is slower here than it could be”. The FT puts the gap in numbers: on UK government estimates, US computing capacity is projected at roughly 20 times Britain’s 2030 ambition of 6GW.
He said the government had “watched the free-for-all in parts of the US” and claimed that its approach already includes some of the oversight the victorious Democrats demanded. The mechanism he cited is the data centre covenant published with last month’s Budget, under which developers must commit to local investment and jobs to win government backing. “Move too quickly without bringing communities with you, and people understandably start worrying about the impact on their area,” he said.
He also pointed to promises on cheaper energy and priority grid connections, while conceding “we can’t turn this round overnight”.
The wider government line
Prime Minister Andy Burnham struck a more cautious note on Friday 6 November, saying the US backlash was both an opening for Britain and a reason for care: “You’ve got to find the balance between the two.” Former technology secretary Liz Kendall was more bullish, saying that when a race leader falters “you put your foot on the accelerator”.
The interview follows a week in which AI shares fell sharply on the midterm results. The FT also notes that the Bank of England raised its 2026 growth forecast to 1.6% from 1.1% on Thursday 5 November, with governor Andrew Bailey saying at least part of the surprise appeared “to have been driven by AI investment”. Engadget, which also relayed the interview, adds that UK residents have protested at planned data centre sites.
What to watch
In our view, the minister is betting that the covenant can win the local consent that the US build-out failed to secure. That bet depends on what the covenant asks of developers in practice and whether residents accept it. With campaigners planning an Edinburgh march against AI data centres on 14 November, the “polarising debate” Tomlinson hopes to avoid may already be under way. For businesses relying on new UK compute, the more immediate constraint is the one he admitted: grid connections and energy costs that will not change quickly.