A coalition of 75 organisations opposed to plans for AI data centres in Scotland is set to march in Edinburgh on November 14, Sky News reported on Saturday. Plans are in place to build at least 23 giant AI data centres in Scotland, including a 60-hectare, 60 megawatt site at Auchtertool, according to Sky.
Across the UK, 315 data centres are queueing to connect to the power grid, representing 73 gigawatts of demand compared with the country’s peak energy demand of 45GW, the Guardian reported on November 5. By our arithmetic, the queue is 162% of UK peak demand, or 28GW more than the whole country draws at its peak.
Business Pill Short · Behind the meter
A Business Pill Short on behind-the-meter power, where data centres generate their own electricity instead of waiting for the grid. Its worked example is Anthropic’s gas generator purchase; it does not discuss the UK or Scotland.
The key insight: A coalition of 75 organisations plans to march in Edinburgh on November 14 against at least 23 giant AI data centres planned in Scotland, Sky reported. The Guardian puts the UK data centre grid queue at 315 sites and 73GW against a 45GW national peak; by our arithmetic, the queue is 162% of peak demand.
The demonstration is part of a Europe-wide wave of protests called Stop Dirty Data Centres, with more than 70 demonstrations taking place in 15 countries in November, Sky reported. Trade unions, anti-war groups and housing campaigners will join a march down the Royal Mile, backing calls by charities for the Scottish government to publicly consult on the plans, according to Sky.
Action to Protect Rural Scotland and Friends of the Earth Scotland are among the groups, along with local campaigns in Dumfries & Galloway, Larbert and Edinburgh, Sky said. Kim Pratt of Friends of the Earth Scotland said the movement “is growing day by day as people realise the threats they pose to our land, our energy and our environment”.
Gordon Maloney, chairman of the tenants’ union Living Rent Edinburgh, demanded politicians “stand up for the people who live in Scotland and stop AI data centres being built across the country”, Sky reported.
UK data centres in the grid connection queue (315 sites, 73 GW) vs the UK’s peak electricity demand (45 GW). Data: The Guardian, 5 Nov 2026, as reported. Our arithmetic: 73 / 45 = 162%.
The Scottish Government’s Answer
Scotland’s public finance minister, Hannah Mary Goodlad, said the country has the chance “to get this right from the start” of what the minister called “an emerging industry”, according to Sky. The Scottish government will publish new planning guidance on data centres before the end of the year, Goodlad said.
Goodlad also said “Planning authorities are also now required to notify ministers of new data centre applications, with a new planning direction also requiring an environmental impact assessment to be submitted during planning for all new data centres with a power capacity exceeding 50 megawatts”. The Auchtertool site that Sky cites is 60 megawatts, above that 50 megawatt line.
The Grid Number: 73GW Waiting
The Guardian’s queue figure counts 315 data centres waiting to connect, at 73 gigawatts combined. By our arithmetic, that is an average of about 232 megawatts per queued data centre (73,000 divided by 315), and the queue equals 162% of the 45GW national peak.
About 250 global data centre projects exceeding 100 megawatts in energy demand were announced between 2021 and 2024, with North American schemes dominating the waiting list, the Guardian reported. The UK government has offered data centres grid priority, as covered in our piece on the UK’s £700M AI package.
Two Days of Protests Across Europe
The Edinburgh march follows two days of action on November 6 and 7. In Amsterdam, more than 100 activists gathered at the construction site of a Microsoft AI data centre and broke into the site, Reuters reported; site owner Pure Data Centres plans to invest more than $1 billion. We covered the Amsterdam site entry.
The Guardian said more than 100 groups were joining the Stop Dirty Data Centres events, with actions in Warsaw, Dublin, Denmark, Amsterdam and the Brick Lane area of east London. Reuters put the count of countries at 16, citing the coalition; Sky and the Guardian said 15. The campaign’s coordinator, Owen Espley, told the Guardian “The US mid-term results reflect the concerns communities both sides of the Atlantic share about the harms of large-scale data centres”.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told Reuters “AI, of course, is a super important technology and we need to have our own capacity”, adding that “it’s very important for citizens that they can trust that their energy bills are not skyrocketing and there’s not electricity blackouts because of data centres”.
The Business Lever: Power and Permission
For a UK developer, the sources describe two gates. One is the grid, where 315 data centres are queued for 73GW. The other is planning, where Scotland now requires ministers to be notified of new applications and an environmental impact assessment above 50 megawatts, and where 75 groups are asking for a public consultation.
As we read the Guardian’s figure, 73GW is demand waiting for a grid connection; the article does not say how much of it is AI or how much will proceed.
As we read Sky’s report, the coalition’s stated demand is a public consultation, while some speakers, such as Living Rent Edinburgh’s Gordon Maloney, call for stopping the data centres outright.
As we read the minister’s statement, Scotland’s new rules bring data centre applications to ministers’ attention and add an environmental impact assessment for sites over 50 megawatts.
Kim Pratt, Friends of the Earth Scotland, to Sky News
“what the people of Scotland think about these proposals, and not the profits of big tech developers”
Three Implications
FOR DEVELOPERS The Guardian puts 315 data centres in the UK grid queue at 73GW, against a 45GW national peak; by our arithmetic, that is 162% of peak.
FOR SCOTTISH SITES Goodlad said ministers must now be notified of new applications and sites over 50 megawatts need an environmental impact assessment; Sky cites a 60 megawatt site at Auchtertool.
FOR THE CAMPAIGN Sky reported more than 70 demonstrations in 15 countries in November, and the Guardian said more than 100 groups joined the November 6-7 events.
The essay says “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, the UK grid queue puts that bottleneck in one number, and the Scottish planning rules add a second gate. The essay does not discuss the UK or Scotland.
What Is Not Established
Sky did not give a combined power figure for the 23 planned Scottish sites, and the Guardian did not say how many of the 315 queued data centres are in Scotland or are AI facilities. Turnout for the November 14 march is not known. The sources do not say how the Scottish government’s coming planning guidance will treat the sites already proposed.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
A coalition of 75 organisations plans to march in Edinburgh on November 14 against at least 23 giant AI data centres planned in Scotland, Sky reported, while the Guardian put the UK’s data centre grid queue at 73GW against a 45GW national peak. By our arithmetic, the queue is 162% of peak demand. Scotland’s government says new planning guidance comes before the end of the year.
A note on sourcing. The Edinburgh march, the Scottish site count and the minister’s statement are from Sky News (7 November). The grid queue and peak demand figures are from the Guardian (5 November). The Amsterdam site entry and the EU tech chief’s comments are from Reuters (6 November). The 162%, 28GW and 232MW figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
