Manchester AI-ready data centre proposal tabled
With the aim of constructing the 28,000 sq ft scheme by 2030, Latos Data Centres has submitted plans for a facility off Bower Street in Newton Heath.
The two-building development would be constructed on a three-acre brownfield site close to the Lowry Park industrial zone and is intended to cater for the growing popularity of AI.
The project would be a “neural edge data centre” which are said to be faster than traditional cloud computing facilities and can bring “powerful AI computing closer to end users”, Latos has said previously.
Neural edge data centres are on the smaller end of the data centre spectrum, with hyperscale centres for users such as Microsoft being the largest.
Latos is also behind proposals for a smaller, £100m data centre in Tees Valley.
Create Architecture is leading on design and Euan Kellie Property Solutions is the planning consultant. E3P, Sol, Merebrook Consulting, CW Studio, GIA, Civic, RWO, SK Transport, and Counter Context are also advising.
To learn more, search for reference number PLA-2026-001350 on Manchester City Council’s planning portal.
Who benefits from this really?
Very few jobs are created, all they do is consume resources and provide a service to a (likely) American tech-owned company. The UK is becoming a vassal state to big American tech.
By Anonymous
The UK needs anything it can get. We have the worst educated population in the West. Especially around here.
By Anonymous
I hope they have actually secured the necessary power supply with the local network operator, because grid connections are already causing delays to data-centre projects across the country. Announcing an “AI-ready” data centre is one thing; having enough electricity available to run it is quite another.
We should also cut through the hype about jobs. Once operational, data centres employ relatively few people for their enormous size, and they certainly aren’t a major source of lower-skilled employment for local communities.
But stick an “AI-ready” badge on a development and suddenly it sounds cutting-edge, strategically essential and considerably more attractive when seeking planning support.
Do we need data centres? Yes. Our dependence on cloud computing, AI and the relentless collection and processing of data means demand is only heading one way.
The irony is that much of that demand is being driven by the ever-expanding digital reach of government and big business. Before celebrating every giant windowless box as another technological triumph, perhaps we should be asking two basic questions: where is the power coming from, and who actually benefits?
By Steve5839
Because you can never use too much of Earth’s resources for no benefit whatsoever
By MJC
Definitely don’t want this round here, the utilities it would use to run it should be enough to get it thrown out.
By Anonymous
The AI bubble will burst when the pay walls go up…just watch
By Bernard Fender
An interestingly designed scheme as opposed to the usual plain boxes we get in Manchester – shame its being wasted on a data centre that no one will visit.
By Anonymous
Build it somewhere else, we don’t want it
By Anonymous