The firm behind plans for a huge new Hertfordshire data centre has said it will look to partner with a US tech giant in order to fund the £4 billion development on an 83-acre site in South Mimms.
James Craig, director of Griggs, the property developer behind a new joint venture known as DC01UK, yesterday spoke before a meeting of the South Mimms & Ridge Parish Council, outlining his proposals for the data centres.
Locals asked Mr Craig how he intended to stump up the projected £3.75 billion cost of the development, in a plan that would make the site one of the largest of its kind in Europe, given Griggs did not have a long history building data centres.
“I don’t need to,” Craig said. “Google and Jeffrey Bezos have more money than God.”
Craig said a partner to fund the development was “likely to be somebody along the lines of Microsoft, Amazon, Google” but conceded that DC01UK had yet to sign up a Big Tech partner to fund the project.
“We don’t know for sure at this moment who it is, and we can’t actually go into too much detail about the conversations we’re having in that regard, but they are the three companies that essentially deliver cloud services to the world, onto this country. There are some smaller companies…but the scale of this project [means it] is likely to be the main three.”
Craig added that Griggs had previously acquired a nearby hotel and its surrounding land for conversion into a data centre, and had partnered with a data centre company to deliver the project. He said the DC01UK joint venture had partnered with Chiltern Green Energy because guaranteeing a large power supply was a vital component of the project.
As part of the plans, Griggs has vowed to turn a nearby pub which it acquired in 2021 into an ‘innovation hub’.
Craig said the site would be available for use by local residents and schoolchildren and would be handed over for management by the council once construction was complete.
“We’re looking at things like a studio, potentially a video editing suite, and a coding suite, where people who are not necessarily tech savvy, can also retrain and learn new skills.”
Just three weeks ago, Griggs had obtained planning permission for conversion of the pub, formerly known as the White Hart, into flats.
Craig also vowed to fund local improvements for South Mimms villagers, including an increased-frequency bus service.
The UK government, which this week unveiled rule changes in the treatment of data centres, has welcomed the proposals, describing them as “a vote of confidence in our plans to support the sector to thrive, ensuring everyone across society can feel the economic benefits of its growth.”