Government confirms North East as location of second AI growth zone | Computer Weekly

""The AI growth zone will generate growth opportunities across the region, capitalising on access to the UK's largest source of low carbon and renewable energy, world-class universities and the region's emerging tech ecosystem in areas including advanced manufacturing, robotics and space," said the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), in a statement. It is understood that Cobalt Park is already home to three carrier-neutral colocation datacentres, which benefit from a dedicated energy supply from the National Grid."

"In a separate announcement, OpenAI - the company behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT - confirmed that the AI growth zone at Cobalt Park will be one of several UK sites that will host compute capacity for its Stargate UK venture. Stargate UK is a joint venture between Open AI, NVIDIA and Nscale that is geared towards building out the UK's sovereign compute capacity for the sole purpose of hosting AI models."

"More than 200 expressions of interest were directed to the government in response to its call for local authorities and other related parties to bid to become AI growth zones back in February 2025. At this point, the government had already confirmed the first AI growth zone would be located in Culham, Oxfordshire, at the headquarters of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)."

The government confirmed two North East sites near Newcastle will form the UK's second artificial intelligence growth zone. The zone comprises distinct locations at Cobalt Park and in Blyth. More than 200 expressions of interest were received following a February 2025 call for bids. The first AI growth zone is located at Culham, Oxfordshire, at the UKAEA headquarters, and successful bidders were to be notified by summer 2025. DSIT said the zone will capitalise on low-carbon and renewable energy, universities and the regional tech ecosystem across advanced manufacturing, robotics and space. Cobalt Park hosts carrier-neutral datacentres with dedicated National Grid supply and will host OpenAI's Stargate UK compute capacity, a joint venture with NVIDIA and Nscale to build sovereign compute for hosting AI models.

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