The UK risks falling behind in the global race to scale artificial intelligence (AI) unless urgent action is taken to accelerate nuclear development, a new report by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) and the independent global economic advisory Oxford Economics warns.

The report – Powering the UK Data Boom: The Nuclear Solution to the UK’s Data Centre Energy Crunch – shows that electricity demand from UK data centres is set to increase more than fivefold to 26.2 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2030, equivalent to almost 9% of the nation’s electricity use and around 30% of commercial consumption.

Meeting this long-term growth will require major expansion of nuclear capacity, the report concludes.