Nebius has chosen Kao Data's Harlow campus for a 22MW AI infrastructure deployment under a 10-year agreement.
The project forms part of Nebius's wider £1.7 billion investment in the UK and will host services for AI developers, researchers and businesses.
The installation will support Nebius AI Cloud and its managed inference service, Nebius Token Factory, from the Harlow site. The campus already supports advanced computing workloads linked to AI, academic research and life sciences.
For Nebius, the deal establishes a substantial UK base as it expands its artificial intelligence cloud footprint. The Nasdaq-listed group said some of the new capacity will be used for inference workloads, an AI segment attracting rising investment as companies move models into production.
The agreement also strengthens Harlow's position in Britain's data centre market, where operators are trying to secure enough power, land and grid access to meet rising demand for AI computing. Multi-megawatt commitments of this length remain relatively uncommon in a market constrained by limited infrastructure.
UK expansion
Nebius described the UK as an important market in its international network. Dedicated capacity at Harlow will help serve domestic customers building and deploying AI systems.
Part of the installation will be reserved for Nebius Token Factory, which Nebius describes as a production-scale inference platform for deploying and optimising open AI models. This points to a commercial focus beyond research, with enterprise customers expected to join academic and technical users.
The project also aligns with broader efforts to expand domestic computing resources for UK organisations. Ministers have placed AI infrastructure high on the policy agenda as they seek to strengthen the country's research base and industrial competitiveness.
Kao Data linked the agreement to those ambitions, presenting the Harlow campus as a hub for large-scale AI computing. The operator has been expanding data centre capacity around London and in northern England as demand rises from cloud providers, research institutions and enterprises running more intensive workloads.
Sustainability focus
The companies also highlighted the Harlow deployment's energy and cooling design. The campus runs on 100% renewable energy, uses HVO-powered generators for support systems and employs direct-to-chip liquid cooling in the KLON-03 facility to reduce water use.
Those details reflect a growing focus on the environmental impact of AI infrastructure, particularly as denser GPU-based systems require more electricity and more specialised thermal management than conventional server estates. Operators increasingly promote liquid cooling as AI hardware pushes up rack densities and puts pressure on existing data centre designs.
Harlow has become one of the sites seeking to capture this next phase of demand. Kao Data said the campus was specifically engineered for AI and advanced computing and has positioned it as one of the UK's more developed environments for such workloads.
Spencer Lamb, Chief Executive Officer at Kao Data, said the agreement marked an important moment for both the company and the UK market. "Today marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the Kao Data portfolio and a landmark moment in the UK's AI ambitions. Nebius is an impressive global AI cloud operator, and we are delighted to welcome such a significant deployment into our Harlow data centre campus. This partnership proves that despite challenging macroeconomic circumstances, demand for industrial scale, UK-based, cutting-edge AI remains high, with Kao Data the perfect platform for the latest AI workloads," Lamb said.
The scale of the contract suggests customers are willing to make long-term commitments for UK AI capacity despite broader economic uncertainty. It also underlines how data centre providers with available power and specialist cooling designs are becoming central to national AI plans.
Nebius said the Harlow deployment would support the next stage of its UK growth. "We're pleased to be continuing our expansion in the UK with Kao Data. The UK is a major destination for AI and is becoming an important part of Nebius's global footprint. By bringing dedicated capacity to support inference workloads, we can enable UK AI builders and enterprises to achieve their AI goals," Korolenko said.