Microsoft’s retreat from planned 50 mW facility highlights power grid constraints.
Microsoft has reportedly withdrawn from an agreement to become the anchor customer for a planned artificial intelligence data center in Loughton, England, after delays in securing an electricity connection delayed the facility’s expected availability into the 2030s. The news was first reported in The Telegraph, a London newspaper.
The project was announced in 2025 during President Donald Trump’s visit to England. It was intended to provide 50 megawatts of AI computing, with the potential of scaling to 90 mW using 23,040 Nvidia GB300 processors. The facility was originally expected to begin operating in early 2027.
However, grid connection delays have pushed the expected power availability back by several years, making the original deployment schedule unworkable for Microsoft.
Microsoft was just the main tenant. Nscale was the data center owner and builder. Nscale is a British AI infrastructure company that builds and operates data centers offering cloud services for AI.
“We remain committed to our partnership with Nscale, including work to build robust digital infrastructure and support AI growth globally. This decision relates to a single site,” said a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to Network World.
An Nscale spokesman told Reuters “Our relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long-term, and this unfortunate London-wide grid issue has no impact on our other contracts.”
“We remain committed to both the Loughton project and the UK, and we are exploring alternative power sources for the site, as well as other expansion sites in the UK,” Nscale added.
“This decision relates to a single site,” a Microsoft spokesperson said of its termination of an agreement for the data center in Loughton, Essex, where Nscale had faced delays, with electricity grid officials telling the AI company they did not expect to supply power to the site until the 2030s.
“Our relationship with Microsoft remains strong and long-term, and this unfortunate London-wide grid issue has no impact on our other contracts,” a spokesperson for Nscale told Reuters.
“We remain committed to both the Loughton project and the UK, and we are exploring alternative power sources for the site, as well as other expansion sites in the UK,” the company added.
Nscale is a new company but has grown very large very fast. Its total contracted value has grown from $100 million to more than $103 billion in two-and-a-half years. However, it is rather dependent on just two players: Microsoft and Anthropic. Together, those two companies account for approximately 85% of its contracts.
The timing hurts, though, as Nscale filed for a U.S. initial public offering just last month. Losing Microsoft’s commitment at Loughton could complicate investor assessments of its ability to deliver planned infrastructure on schedule.
The Loughton power issue shows that access to electricity is not just a US problem, it’s a global problem, and that power can be as important as access to advanced processors, capital and data center construction capacity.
