Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to coordinate cross-Government compute-related (a) planning and (b) infrastructure.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out how the UK can lay the foundations for AI growth, by building the cutting-edge compute infrastructure needed to lead in AI development and deployment. To deliver this commitment, we are working closely across government, including on the creation of AI Growth Zones.

With MHCLG we have updated the National Planning Policy Framework to make it easier to build data infrastructure.

MHCLG will be introducing legislation this year to enable larger data centres to be directed into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects consenting regime on request. As part of this work, DSIT will be producing a National Policy Statement (NPS) on data infrastructure to guide future planning decisions.