DataVita has secured a c.£300m debt facility to expand its DV1 data centre and build a second, DV3, in the North Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone. A £202m National Wealth Fund guarantee covering 80% of the £252.5m tranche lent by ING, ABN AMRO and Santander unlocked the deal. Two further lenders took uncovered positions: Siemens Bank, and the Scottish National Investment Bank. Capacity at both sites is contracted to CoreWeave on a 15-year lease.
The facility funds around 600 construction jobs and about 100 permanent high-skilled roles. It is the first time the National Wealth Fund has backed UK computing capacity. Dell Technologies will base its Scottish team at Mercury House in the AI Innovation Park. Scottish Economy Secretary Stephen Flynn said the zone would deliver “more than 3,400 new jobs and private investment totalling more than £8 billion”.
High Growth Scotland has been tracking Scottish data centre and AI infrastructure investment, a subject that has grown steadily in importance for the Scottish economy this year.
The financing follows a Guardian investigation published on 6 July which reported the complex — announced in January as an £8.2bn development powered entirely from on-site renewables by 2030 — had “no prospect of meeting that goal”. Drawing on freedom of information requests, the paper reported the site lacked a grid connection and that officials and the developer had privately acknowledged an “issue” with “power provision”. It quoted a February letter from First Minister John Swinney to DataVita managing director Danny Quinn: “I recognise that power provision remains a key issue.”
Quinn addressed delivery directly this week. “There is plenty of talk about AI infrastructure just now. This project is being delivered: work is well advanced on site, every megawatt is contracted, and the first facility completes this year.”
