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Connectivity provider Neos Networks, which operates one of the biggest 34,000km long and 400Gbps capable business fibre networks in the UK – spanning 550 exchanges, 90+ data centres and 600+ Points of Presence (PoPs), has claimed in a new survey that 82% of UK data centre operators have delayed site builds or expansion due to fibre availability.
The work is based on a Censuswide survey of 100 data centre decision-makers, 100 large enterprise tech/IT decision-makers (with at least 1,000 employees), and 100 local government stakeholders – conducted during August 2025. The results suggest that, despite a big push by the UK government and enterprise momentum around data centre development and artificial intelligence (AI), fibre remains a “critical bottleneck” that could slow the UK’s digital growth.
Naturally, nearly all respondents agreed that investment in high-capacity fibre optic corridors will transform confidence in the UK’s ability to attract and scale AI projects. For example, 95% of data centre operators, 96% of enterprises and 96% of local authorities say new fibre corridors into underserved areas would positively impact AI and data centre growth. Some 53% of local authorities believe such projects would be transformative.
Key Survey Findings
➤ 89% of local government stakeholders report that fibre gaps have delayed infrastructure projects in their regions.
➤ 45% of enterprises cite fibre as the key bottleneck holding back AI and digital infrastructure.
➤ 46% of local government authorities say their region’s fibre infrastructure is not fully ready to support AI data centres.
➤ 16% of companies doubts the ability of the UK’s current fibre infrastructure to support their AI ambitions.
➤ 96% of data centre operators say AI Growth Zones are influencing expansion and site selection, with 44% citing them as a strong influence.
➤ 68% of enterprises view AI Growth Zones as a strong driver of change in their infrastructure planning.
➤ 23% of data centre operators still expect new investment in Greater London, a greater share pointed to the North of England and the Midlands (39%), signalling a shift towards regional hubs of AI activity.
➤ 97% data centre operators expect up to half of their UK compute to move to the edge of the network by 2030, underlining the need for high-performance, resilient fibre across every region.
➤ 41% of data centre leaders believe the UK’s fibre networks are only partially prepared to support regional AI workloads.
➤ 70% of enterprises feel the UK’s attractiveness for data centre investment needs improvement (53%) or is lagging (17%).
It’s important to stress that the sort of fibre connectivity required by a data centre is not the same as the sort of fibre (FTTP) broadband that reaches your home via the local access network. Data centres typically require extremely high-capacity core links and redundancy to help serve customers. Obviously, Neos Networks has a vested interest in this field, as this is precisely the sort of problem they exist to resolve (i.e. take the survey with a pinch of salt).
Lee Myall, CEO of Neos Networks, said:
“Over the past decade, we’ve seen a huge amount of investment in last-mile fibre builds, but core fibre networks across the country have received much less attention. Without them, workloads cannot move between data centres, data cannot be trained, and investments stall. The UK has the ambition, the demand and the regional readiness to lead in AI, but if we don’t address fibre gaps, we risk losing out on one of the greatest economic opportunities of our generation.”
Sadly, the study didn’t include any practical examples to help illustrate the point. Not to mention that you can’t always rely on the right fibre being present exactly where you want to build a new data centre, which is why such projects often have to factor in the need (and costs) for extra network build when they’re in the design stage (i.e. par for the course).