140 UK Data Centres Are Queuing for Power That Doesn't Exist. Here's Where the Money Goes.

The UK has announced $59 billion of data centre investment since 2023, and the National Grid cannot power it. 140 data centres are sitting in the connection queue asking for 50GW; the UK's peak demand this year was 45GW. In this episode of Noise Cancelling, Jon explains how the grid connection queue actually works, and Neil Woodford explains why he believes this is an energy policy failure decades in the making.

We cover the three things that make the queue unfixable on current policy: connection waits stretching past 2035, why no large gas plant has been built since 2016, and why industrial electricity in the UK costs four times what it does in the US. OpenAI has already put its UK Stargate project on hold.

Then the investor question: if announced capacity is not delivered capacity, where does the capital actually have to go first? Transmission, grid supply chains, nuclear including SMRs, and gas peaking. Watch the queue, watch Ofgem reform, and watch which hyperscale campuses actually break ground.