'We won the Al race'

TECH BOSS ON UK'S FIRST DATA CENTRE OF ITS TYPE BEING BUILT ON TEESSIDE

- By GARETH LIGHTFOOT Local democracy reporter

A NEW £100m AI centre on Teesside will be the very first of its type in the country, giving the region a head start of years in a technological revolution, a company director has said.

Andy Collin, managing director of Latos Data Centres, said of the forthcoming centre, which has just been given planning permission by Stockton Council and could bring 550 jobs.

He said: "In the next 24 months Teesside will have the very first genuinely AI-ready data centre in the whole of the UK. It basically gives us a jump-start so that local businesses can provide services that no area in the country is really capable of doing.

"We're targeting Al inferencing... it runs things like vehicle automation and traffic signalling.

"We're also targeting AI startup companies in the region. We're trying to create cost-effective access for local AI startups and stimulate the economy. Quite a lot of people are currently trying to retrofit old data centres to incorporate AI.

"We decided not to do that and build a purpose-built facility. It's cleaner and it's more futureproofed."

Mr Collin said other Al-related proposals could take into the 2030s to come to fruition. He added: "We're going to provide this access by 2028, which gives Teesside a real head start on other regions."

He said the next step was design, and "that'll be finished in the next three weeks and we'll go into construction by the end of the year.

"We're very excited. We're a local business, we employ 420 people in the region, we run a training centre company locally and we're trying to get Teesside back on the map.