Large data centre proposals in Scotland, from pre-application notices to live planning applications and appeals, plus the sites already operating. Each entry shows its council planning record, where one exists, and its other sources by type, so every claim can be checked against more than one publisher.
Circle area scales with MW. Hollow rings have no published capacity. Positions are approximate (town or estate level).
Proposed, in progress and stalled
Schemes from first announcement through to a lodged application, plus those under construction, refused or stalled. Most are large AI campuses still at pre-application, and together they would add many times today's operating capacity.
Operating
Data centres running in Scotland today, mostly colocation, bank and research sites in the Central Belt, Aberdeen and Dundee. Most are small; the largest, DataVita DV1 at Chapelhall, is about 24MW.
Planning and policy timeline
How sources are graded
Each entry lists every source we used, labelled by who published it. An entry counts as corroborated when at least two different publishers report it and at least one of them is not a campaign group or a commercial directory.
GovernmentScottish or UK Government, Parliament, the planning appeals division (DPEA), NESO
CouncilLocal authority planning portal records, news or committee papers. Planning records were searched on each council's portal for "data centre" on 18 Oct 2026.
NoticeStatutory planning notices published in local papers
OperatorThe operator's or developer's own website or press release
NewsNewspapers, broadcasters and trade press
CampaignCampaign groups and petitions, including the APRS tracker
DirectoryCommercial data centre listings and property agents
Some news sites block automated link checks, but every link here was found through search and checked on 18 Oct 2026; none returned "not found".
Proposed, in progress and stalled schemes
Rankings
Questions asked of every proposal, each answered with figures that exist for every scheme shown. Click any scheme to open its page. Operating sites are left out.
Previously developedAllocated for businessDisputedGreenfield or farmland
Previously developed land, such as former steelworks or factories, is generally favoured in planning policy over farmland. Allocated means the council's plan sets the land aside for business use. Schemes with no published capacity, or where the land type is not clear (Chapelcross sits next to the former nuclear site), are left out.
Closest to homes
Mapped buildings within 500 m of the council red line.
Counts every building in OpenStreetMap outside the red line (homes, farms, sheds and businesses), so it measures how built-up the surroundings are rather than a household count. Only schemes with a council red line appear.
Most flood-exposed
Largest share of the red line inside a SEPA 1-in-200-year flood extent.
Only applications open to public comment can collect objections; schemes still at pre-application have none yet. Fife files each comment as a document.
Petition signatures
Signatures on petitions against a specific scheme, read 20 Oct 2026.
For comparison: the industry model (techUK) assumes 8.5 per MW, a 2026 study of 20 planned UK sites (Verdant) found 1.6, and the 720 MW QTS campus at Cambois expects 0.56. Schemes with no jobs figure are left out. The Next WebResultsense
Community benefit per megawatt
Promised community benefit in pounds a year for each megawatt of capacity.
All are promises only; none is yet in a legal agreement. DataVita's £75m over 15 years is counted as £5m a year. Apatura offers the same rate, about £6,000 per MW a year, at every site. Schemes with no figure are left out.
