Dell Sets Up Scottish Base as AI Growth Zone Secures £300M
Scotland's Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone has secured £300 million in financing to expand its data centers, drawing Dell Technologies to establish its new Scottish base at the hub.
On August 18, 2026, the Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone secured a £300 million financing package to expand its data center capacity, while Dell Technologies announced it will establish its Scottish base at the zone's AI Innovation Park. Dell will relocate its Scottish team to Mercury House within the park. The funding will enable developer DataVita to expand its existing DV1 facility and build a second data center on its Chapelhall site between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The first facility is scheduled to be completed this year.
The financial package relies on a £202 million guarantee from the UK's National Wealth Fund. This guarantee covers 80% of a £252.5 million lending tranche provided by commercial banks ING, ABN AMRO, and Santander. The remaining portion of the £300 million package is provided without cover by the Scottish National Investment Bank and Siemens Financial Services. According to National Wealth Fund CEO Oliver Holbourn, the guarantee helps address the difficulty of securing private finance for large-scale emerging infrastructure by "giving lenders the confidence to invest."
The development is expected to support over 3,400 jobs across construction, engineering, and operations, including 800 high-paying AI and data center roles and 50 apprenticeships. The project has attracted £8.2 billion in total private investment to the zone, which was designated as Scotland's first AI Growth Zone on January 29, 2026. This includes a £1.5 billion commitment from AI cloud provider CoreWeave to deploy GPU capacity on DataVita's infrastructure, part of CoreWeave's broader £2.5 billion UK investment.
To power the infrastructure, DataVita plans to establish energy parks aiming for over 1 gigawatt of renewable generation, with a near-term target of more than 500 megawatts of on-site power within four years. The site will also utilize closed-loop cooling to keep water consumption near zero. Additionally, the project includes a £543 million community fund to be distributed over 15 years of operation, supplemented by £1 million annually from DataVita's parent company, HFD Group, for local charities.
This is our own summary of reporting by Unite.AI
