Data centre developer blames ‘cowboy builders’ for AI backlash
Data centre developer blames ‘cowboy builders’ for AI backlash
Matthew FieldSun, November 8, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC
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Mahdi Yahya said that the AI boom has given birth to new and inexperienced developers
The boss of a proposed £20bn data centre in North Yorkshire has blamed “cowboy builders” for fuelling a backlash against AI infrastructure.
Mahdi Yahya, the chief executive of Radiant, a data centre developer backed by investment giant Brookfield, said that “inexperienced” developers had tried to ram through projects despite local objections.
He said that “too many cowboy builders” had turned communities against AI developers.
Mr Yahya added: “The AI boom gave birth to a lot of really new developers, some inexperienced. This backlash is bringing everyone back to a certain level of professionalism.”
A wave of new data centre companies has sprung up to capitalise on the AI boom, promising to build facilities to power apps such as Claude and ChatGPT.
Some have raised tens of billions in funding, yet their projects have faced local opposition, funding problems and construction delays.
Mr Yahya added: “Serious developers who have been building for a long time know how to address these concerns.”
His comments came after the US midterm elections, in which a host of Democratic Party candidates swept to power on anti-data-centre mandates.
The results prompted a sell-off in AI stocks last week, wiping trillions off Wall Street’s value.
Unrest over data centres in Europe has also grown, with protesters storming a Microsoft data centre site in the Netherlands on Friday.
The campaign group Stop Dirty Data Centres, which has called for mass protests against data centres across Europe this weekend, has warned that an “explosion of AI data centres” is threatening jobs and the planet.
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Activists protest a Microsoft data centre in the Netherlands. There have been calls for mass data centre protests in Europe - Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
Mr Yahya’s Radiant plans to build up to a gigawatt of data centre capacity as part of a deal with Drax, which operates the UK’s largest power station in North Yorkshire.
However, the project has seen a backlash from green campaigners, who have warned Drax’s power plant is the UK’s single biggest polluter.
Backed by investment giant Brookfield and Qatar’s national AI fund, the project will require up to £2.5bn in its initial stages and up to £20bn in future.
Radiant plans rely on Drax’s biomass power station, which supplies about 5pc of the UK’s electricity, to fuel its new data centre.
It intends to have around 100MW of capacity online by 2028, before expanding further.
The data centre will link to an existing grid connection, meaning it will not face the long power delays that have plagued other sites.
Drax argues its site provides critical grid stability and a backstop power source for solar and wind. A spokesman said biomass is a “mainstream sustainable and renewable source”, with its pellets made from waste from the timber industry.
Despite the backlash in the US, Mr Yahya said he did not expect a “full pause” on AI development, but “it’s going to be a force for correction”.
But he added that “experienced, serious builders” would not be “massively affected”, as some established projects have been trying to contact local communities to win them over.
Many projects in the US risk being derailed by local protests or political opposition. Some have faced lawsuits over claims that they violated air-quality or noise-pollution rules when building their facilities.
In Texas, where many AI facilities are being built, Gina Hinojosa, the newly elected governor, has pledged a moratorium on new data centre construction.
In the UK, data centres face years of delays amid a backlog of applications for connections to the national grid, driven in part by speculative AI projects that may never be built.
Source: “AOL Money”
