SNP ministers should take planning decisions for AI data centres out of local government hands and designate the projects as critical national infrastructure, according to Sandy Begbie, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise. Begbie's call follows mounting local opposition to large-scale data centre proposals and a demand by Edinburgh City Council's planning committee for a nationwide moratorium.
In an article for Scotland on Sunday, Begbie said decisions about hyperscale AI data centres were "of national importance for economic growth, resilience and security" and should be distanced from "petty point scoring politics" at council level. He urged ministers to bring the planning of such projects directly into central government.
The argument for centralised control
Begbie warned that the public debate had so far been "relatively fact free" and "hijacked by politics, minority vested interests and false information." He said ethical and environmental concerns should be "managed sensitively," but the country could not afford to block technological progress.
"These are decisions of national importance for economic growth, resilience and security, and we should treat them so by designating data centres as critical national infrastructure," Begbie said. "As such, we should remove decisions around planning of these projects away from local authorities and the petty point scoring politics, and bring these decisions of national importance into central government. As a country, some would have us stick our heads in the sand and carry on as we always have, using yesterday's solutions to solve tomorrow's problems. Instead, our political leaders should learn the lessons of history and show leadership to face down the naysayers."
Local resistance and environmental costs
Twenty-three data centres currently operate in Scotland, the largest in North Ayrshire, with plans to expand to 40MW of capacity - roughly the electricity demand of 30,000 homes. Proposed hyperscale centres would be far larger, with some aiming for 1,000MW. Such facilities can consume about 2.5 billion litres of water a year, equivalent to the needs of 80,000 people.
Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, said the real economic value lies in existing data centres that support cloud computing, banks and university research. "Hyperscale AI data centres, which use 20-100 times more energy, are solely for training and running the large language models which benefit US big tech companies at the expense of our jobs and economy," she said.
Government response
A Scottish Government spokesperson said ministers were "giving active consideration" to planning guidance that would balance the fast expansion of hyperscale data centres with national energy and climate goals. "It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on any specific development proposals in the planning system, however we have been clear that the voices of communities that will be affected by these kinds of development must be central to any considerations," the spokesperson added. COSLA, the body representing Scottish councils, did not provide a comment.
Why this matters for government professionals
The tussle over data centre planning highlights a broader shift where AI infrastructure is being treated as strategic national asset. For civil servants and policy officials, the technical and regulatory complexity is rising. Training resources such as the AI for Policy Makers Learning Path and AI for Government Training help build the knowledge needed to assess these projects on facts rather than political noise. The decisions made now will shape energy grids, water use, and economic development for decades - officials who understand the underlying technology will be better equipped to balance growth with genuine public interest.
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