NEWS IN NUMBERS
10,000 The total annual rate of decrease of new housing output . Source: ONS
27% The number of home
improvement applications has fallen by 27% since 2021, with 2023 seeing the lowest
Electrical contractors warn of AI capacity crisis
numbers since 2013. Source: Barbour ABI
And it is going to become even more prevalent in the near future. “Data centres, which have many servers as their main components, need electrical power to survive. It is therefore only natural that any talk about building a data centre should begin with figuring out the electrical needs and how to satisfy those power requirements. “At present, the UK’s National Grid appears to be holding its own, with current increases being met with renewable energy systems. But as technology advances and systems such as AI are introduced, there will be a time when the grid will struggle to support the demand.”
Scottish electrical contractors’ trade association, Select, has said the UK power network may be unable to provide the energy needed to run artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Mike Stark, President of Select and Director of Data Cabling and Networks at facilities management firm OCS M&E Services, warned the new technology’s demand for electricity is often greater than what small countries use in a year. Stark said: “AI is becoming more embedded in our everyday lives, from digital assistants and chatbots helping us on websites to navigation apps and autocorrect on our mobile phones.
4.5% Percentage by which input costs rose for Scottish construction in the year to Q2 2024. Source: Arcadis
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Master Builder
www.fmb.org.uk
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