There is potential for symbiotic relationships between data centres and airports due to their shared need for highly resilient energy supplies, but the high demand for data centres could be a bubble, according to an airports strategy expert.
Mott MacDonald fellow & group head of strategy Simon Harrison made the comments about energy resilience, airports and data centres at NCE Airports Conference & Awards 2026 on 20 May.
As part of a fireside conversation, he was asked about his views by Mott MacDonald global practice leader, aviation Graham Bolton.
Bolton asked Harrison if he thought there was “a potential symbiotic relationship” between data centres and airports in terms of their requirements for resilient access to energy.
Responding, Harrison said: “There could be if you’ve got a 200MW airport and a 500MW data centre, then together, that makes a more economic case for high resilience grid connectivity.”
He added that there could be a strong case for sharing backup power generation, which could benefit from the economies of scale made possible by co-locating the two types of development.
Speaking about the wave of development of data centres in the UK, Harrison said: “Data centres could be sites of 500MW to 1000MW a go and the projections, if you listen to the data centre industry, [are] of up to 20GW of new demand coming from data centres just in the UK.”
Expanding on the potential beneficial relationship between data centres and airports, he said: “My sense is that the level of demand from all the airports across the UK feels as if it’s something like 500 to 1000MW, something of that order.
“Just to put that in context, that’s one data centre, so from a generation capacity [perspective], you’re part of the story, but you’re the dominant part of the story.
“Where I think the focus perhaps needs to be more is on connectivity and getting the additional power into where you are in an environment of network congestion, which is playing out not just for you but for everybody else as well, as we’re trying to electrify the economy.”
However, he warned that the demand for data centres in the UK has “all the symptoms” of a bubble.
A bubble in the data centre market would mean that the projected value of data centres is rapidly increasing, based on speculation, and that value may disappear in future if there is a contraction in demand.
“You’re seeing it in stock valuations in US tech firms, they’re all a bet on the data centre boom playing out well for that particular company, and so there is every chance that that [the demand for] 20GW [of UK data centres] plus will come down quite a lot, but will still be not insignificant,” he added.
He did not specify which company he was talking about. However, on 21 May, the AI chipmaker Nvidia reported sales and profits which beat expectations, and has a stock market value of $5.3tn (£3.94tn). The entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the UK is $4.26tn (£3.16tn).
Demand for Nvidia’s chips is driven in part by global demand for data centres.
Like what you’ve read? To receive New Civil Engineer’s daily and weekly newsletters click here.
