ONS Explains How Data Centres Count in UK Investment and Emissions Figures

The Office for National Statistics has set out exactly how data centres supporting AI and cloud computing are recorded in business investment statistics, GDP measures and environmental accounts.

The figures show that the UK emitted 478 million tonnes of greenhouse gases on a residence basis in 2024 — a number that includes energy-intensive digital infrastructure such as data centres, though ONS does not yet publish a separate breakdown for them alone. The ONS article, Data Centres and the UK National Accounts, explains that spending on data centre buildings, equipment and software during construction counts as gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) — the standard measure of business investment — feeding directly into the expenditure approach to GDP.

Once a data centre is up and running, it contributes to GDP through a different route: the digital infrastructure services it provides, such as cloud computing, data storage and server hosting, are captured in the output approach to GDP. Wages paid to staff and profits earned by operators are picked up through the income approach. So the same facility touches all three ways of measuring the economy.

There’s a gap in the current figures worth flagging. ONS confirms that data stored on databases by data centres is not included in GFCF under the current framework, and UK estimates of investment in data specifically are not yet available. The forthcoming System of National Accounts 2025 will recognise data as an investment asset internationally, but ONS has excluded it from present analysis precisely because reliable UK estimates don’t exist yet.

For Kent households and businesses, the practical read-through is indirect but real. Data centres located in the South East — served by UK Power Networks for electricity distribution — feed into regional energy demand and grid planning. Planning decisions for large facilities of this kind sit with councils including Kent County Council, Dartford Borough Council and others across the county. ONS energy use data runs from 1990 to 2024 by industry and fuel, but data centres appear within broader ICT sector classifications rather than as a named category, so local environmental impacts can’t be read off directly from national statistics.

The ONS article is part of a wider programme of work on the digital economy, including a planned AI thematic account. The figures, as they stand, give a methodologically consistent picture — but critics argue the current framework doesn’t yet capture the full value or full environmental cost of AI and cloud infrastructure. ONS appears to agree: the work is described as ongoing.