NEP3 had previously been earmarked for an electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant, until British startup Britishvolt collapsed last year.
If agreed, the council would receive up to £110M in exchange for amending the buy-back option on the NEP3 land site.
“"The project would represent a significant inward investment of up to £10 billion, putting our County at the forefront of developments in the digital economy, and delivering over 1,600 direct jobs, including 1,200 long-term construction jobs, and over 2,700 indirect jobs over the course of the development,” council leader, Glen Sanderson said.
The council will review the proposal at a meeting on April 23rd next week.
Blackstone has already held initial talks with the UK’s National Grid to ensure it can secure the energy required to run the campus.
If approval is granted, the data centre is to be run by QTS, which was acquired by Blackstone in 2021 for $10 billion.
Blackstone has steadily been increasing its exposure to the data centre industry since buying QTS. In 2022, it announced an Asian platform that has 600 MW of planned data centre capacity in five tier-1 Indian cities.
In late 2023 it announced a $7 billion joint venture with global data centre group Digital Realty, to build data centres in Europe and the US, while most recently it announced credit facility with Aligned Data Centers through its credit and insurance business.
"The project would represent a significant inward investment of up to £10 billion, putting our County at the forefront of developments in the digital economy, and delivering over 1,600 direct jobs, including 1,200 long-term construction jobs, and over 2,700 indirect jobs over the course of the development,” Sanderson added.
