What does a data centre do?
A data centre stores and processes data for other people. When you send a message, stream a film, pay by card or ask an AI chatbot a question, the work happens on servers in a data centre somewhere, not on your phone.
1. Stores data
Photos backed up to your phone's cloud, your email, your bank's account records and the NHS's systems all live on storage in data centres. Copies are usually kept in more than one building, so a fire or power cut at one site doesn't lose anything.
2. Runs websites and apps
Every website and app has servers behind it that answer requests: loading a page, checking a password, finding a train time. Most of those servers sit in data centres, either owned by the company itself or rented.
3. Powers the cloud
"The cloud" is other companies' computers in data centres, rented by the hour. Instead of buying servers, a business rents computing power and storage from a cloud provider, which runs huge hyperscale data centres to supply it.
4. Trains and runs AI
AI models are trained on thousands of specialised chips working together for weeks, and every question you then ask the model is answered by more chips in a data centre. This is the fastest-growing job data centres do, and the reason for most of the new sites in the UK. See AI data centres in the UK.
5. Connects networks
Some data centres are meeting points where internet providers, mobile networks and content companies connect to each other directly. Traffic between them can then take a short path instead of crossing the country. These sites, often in London and other big cities, are why data centres cluster where they do.
6. Keeps all of that running
Much of what a data centre does is invisible: keeping the power on through grid failures, removing the heat the servers make, and keeping people out. That is where most of the jobs are. Read what is inside a data centre for the equipment, or how to get into data centre work for the roles.
Where they are
Browse every UK data centre we track or see them on the map.