Mark Pestridge, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Telehouse Europe, answers our questions about the evolving role of data centres as critical national infrastructure and their growing importance in the digital economy. He discusses how industry expansion, regulatory changes and public awareness efforts will shape the future of data centres in the UK.
How is the data centre industry evolving in response to growing digital infrastructure demands and emerging technologies like AI?
The data centre industry is building on a year of strong momentum, with further expansion expected as we move towards Summer 2025. As demand for digital infrastructure continues to surge, data centres are reinforcing their role in powering transformation across industries such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing and retail. Recent techUK research highlights an exciting opportunity for data centres to add £44 billion to the UK economy by 2035.
This remarkable expansion is fuelled by rapid technological advances, particularly in AI, which are set to accelerate the demand for data centres like never before. Chinese start-up, Deepseek’s groundbreaking AI model, R1, is one such innovation, which has rapidly made an impact on the market this year, thanks to its cost-effectiveness and performance, rivalling established models like OpenAI’s GPT-4.
However, making this growth a reality requires the industry to adapt on several fronts: particularly by forging deeper customer relationships, embracing new cooling technologies for AI-driven workloads, delivering low-latency connectivity, and proactively supporting the communities in which they operate.
How will the rise of AI impact data centre cooling, networking and infrastructure requirements?
The explosion of AI will also force data centres to make decisions about cooling technology. According to McKinsey, the demand for AI-ready data centre capacity is projected to grow at 33% annually up to 2030 in a midrange scenario. By 2030, approximately 70% of the total demand for data centre capacity will be for facilities capable of supporting advanced AI workloads.
Such growth puts stress on traditional air-cooling solutions, as AI workloads often involve massive computational power that generates significant heat. Liquid cooling systems will therefore become a more prominent choice through the remainder of 2025 and beyond, delivering the performance and energy efficiency AI workloads demand.
While liquid cooling can be highly effective, implementing it requires meticulous planning and careful management of potential risks, such as leaks that can lead to hardware damage. Alongside cooling, operators must address the growing need for low-latency and high-bandwidth networks. AI applications often rely on real-time data processing, meaning that even small delays can undermine performance.
As Edge Computing deployments increase, data centre location and robust network infrastructure become critical. Proactive operators are leveraging advanced networking solutions, such as software-defined networking (SDN) and direct connectivity options, to reduce latency and improve reliability for AI customers.
How is the relationship between colocation providers and their customers evolving in response to regulatory changes and industry demands?
Colocation providers and their customers have traditionally operated on a transactional basis, with clients purchasing power, space and cooling. Yet the rise of hyperscalers and extensive cloud services has encouraged customers to seek additional capabilities such as regulatory compliance support and real-time infrastructure monitoring. This shift from a purely transactional model to a more collaborative partnership is accelerating as we move through the year and organisations recognise the value in drawing on the expertise of data centre operators.
Nowhere is this more evident than in heavily-regulated sectors like finance. Businesses in these fields face intensifying regulatory scrutiny and must maintain continuous compliance. As these relationships blossom, colocation providers are likely to become trusted proactive partners rather than transactional service vendors.
Implementation of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in January this year is a good example of a regulatory trigger for change. The new EU regulation is designed to fortify financial organisations against cyberattacks and is likely to usher in stronger operational resilience for the financial services sector and their ICT partners including data centre operators. As such, collaborative relationships with financial services will deepen, moving into transparent risk assessments and robust incident response measures.
Through the rest of year and looking towards the future, the industry will also see greater investment in specialised compliance teams and cutting-edge security tools to meet evolving standards. One distinct benefit of this greater regulatory focus is increased trust in data centres among businesses and end-users who depend on safe, stable digital environments.
What impact does the UK government’s designation of data centres as critical national infrastructure have on the industry and its future growth?
The recent government designation of UK data centres as critical national infrastructure also marks the beginning of a new era for the industry, reflecting the country’s increasing reliance on digital services. This classification ensures facilities receive enhanced governmental support during events such as cyber-attacks, extreme weather, or IT failures, in order to minimise disruptions to crucial services.
Despite this recognition, research conducted by Telehouse shows that 67% of UK consumers remain unaware of how data centres underpin their everyday digital lives. Addressing this knowledge gap will be increasingly important through 2025 and beyond to secure public support for industry expansion, attract new talent and improve relationships with local communities.
Public information campaigns can play a central role in helping people understand why reliable data centre operations matter for their personal and professional lives: from online banking and shopping to telehealth appointments and real-time data analytics.
As awareness of data centres’ importance increases, and new opportunities for specialists emerge, the industry could see a surge in recruitment in the remainder of the year, and into the further future. techUK analysis projects that if the UK can increase data centre supply above 10%-to-15% annual growth, it could unlock 40,200 additional and often high-paid data centre operational roles by the year 2035.
As data centres expand, operators will have to invest strategically in communities. Building relevant partnerships in areas like employment and education will enhance and establish mutually beneficial relationships.
It is important for companies to go beyond philanthropy to tackle the skills shortage by introducing enhanced apprenticeship models and training programmes, equipping young people with practical technical skills that close the skills gap. By partnering with local colleges and universities, the data centre industry should be ready to produce the engineers that data centres are going to need.
Volunteering initiatives and community engagement programmes, such as designated ‘giving back’ days, are likely to become more widespread, enabling data centre teams to contribute meaningfully to local projects and charitable causes, including STEM workshops, mentoring schemes and technology donations.
The adoption of flexible working practices in line with equality, diversity and inclusion goals will help to broaden recruitment strategies to ensure a better talent-pool, while at the same time building stronger links with local communities. These initiatives will position data centres as critical infrastructure providers, as well as socially responsible employers invested in community well-being and sustainable growth.
Today, we stand on the cusp of an era of significant change and growth for data centres in which they must adjust quickly to the needs of customers and communities, as well as the emergence of new technologies. If they are successful entire societies will see they are beneficial to the prosperity and wellbeing of everyone, supported by the low-latency networks and high-speed connections that power our everyday digital experiences.
