OpenAI · United Kingdom · ChatGPT · U.S. · The Guardian Technology
OpenAI’s George Osborne confirms datacentre nimbys holding back Britain
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Datacentre nimbys are holding Britain back, George Osborne has said in reaction to nationwide protests about the giant water- and energy-guzzling structures.
Key facts
- Verity Harding, the head of the AI and geopolitics project at Cambridge University’s Bennett School for Public Policy, said people had wider concerns over these centres
- Bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the largest AI companies, will be meeting world leaders at the UN general assembly in New York City this week amid debate over the prospect of dangerous
- He said the UK would lose its “sovereignty” over tech to the US if it failed to allow datacentres to be built
- Datacentre nimbys are holding Britain back, George Osborne has said in reaction to nationwide protests about the giant water- and energy-guzzling structures
Summary
The former Tory chancellor is now the head of AI for countries at OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. Speaking at the Big Brue festival in Somerset on Sunday, Osborne said: “You try and build a datacentre in Britain … I spent my life when I was politician trying to get people to agree to have new roads and railway lines and airport runways, and communities go up in arms, it’s hard to build a datacentre.” He said the UK would lose its “sovereignty” over tech to the US if it failed to allow datacentres to be built. He explained: “You can either choose to have these datacentres in Ohio and Georgia and Michigan, which is where they’re all being built … they don’t allow these things to be built.