MediaCommenting on the first meeting of the government’s AI Energy Council, Sam Richards, CEO of pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, said:
“The first meeting of the government’s AI Energy Council is an important step - but powering the UK’s AI future needs more than good intentions. Data centres demand clean, reliable energy, and that means nuclear. Yet endless red tape and never-ending bureaucracy makes building new nuclear power in Britain slow and costly.
“Small Modular Reactors are ideal for data centres with AI giants ready to invest in the state-of-the-art nuclear tech. But they’ll only do so if they can be certain that projects won’t be trapped in a regulatory and planning quagmire for years.
“AI won’t wait for a broken system. If we want to lead in AI, we need to get serious about energy - and that means getting serious about nuclear and SMRs. Make nuclear easy to build, and we’ll secure clean power, jobs, and the UK’s AI superpower status in one bold move."