The first deal for the $20 billion AI venture backed by Brookfield and Qatar is a data-center campus at Drax.

The proposed AI data center at Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire is the first investment from the $20 billion AI infrastructure venture between Brookfield and Qai, the AI company of the Qatar Investment Authority, Semafor reported on Friday. The 1-gigawatt campus could become the UK's largest data center, and the partners plan to invest about $3.4 billion over the next five years, Semafor said, citing Bloomberg.

Drax, Brookfield and Brookfield's UK compute platform Radiant announced the project on November 3, with total investment that Brookfield estimates could exceed £20 billion. An initial £2.5 billion is earmarked for a 100 MW first phase scheduled to start operating in the first quarter of 2028, with capacity expected to reach 500 MW between 2028 and 2031 on the 1,000-acre site. Qai chairman Abdulla Al-Misnad called it "a major initiative under the Brookfield-Qai joint venture."

**Power in hand, tenant still missing**

The site already has a power connection, but the project still requires a green light to begin construction, an anchor tenant and government approvals, according to sovereign-fund consultancy Global SWF. Drax chief executive Will Gardiner called the station "one of the few UK sites that can provide large-scale reliable power directly to data centre customers."

Global SWF described Qai's model, partnering with Brookfield to develop computing assets, as one of several Gulf approaches: Abu Dhabi's MGX deploys outside institutional capital, while Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN pairs AI operations with investments. Brookfield launched its wider AI infrastructure strategy, which targets up to $100 billion across energy, land, data centers and compute, in November 2025 with Nvidia and the Kuwait Investment Authority.