UK data center firm Latos has been granted permission to develop a new facility outside Middlesbrough.

The company said it has secured full planning approval for a £100 million ($134.9m) data center development in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham.

Located at Preston Farm Industrial Estate in Stockton, the Latos neural Edge facility will total two data halls with a total area of 1,750 sqm (18,835 sq ft).

Latos filed for planning permission on the site back in June. Custom-designed to house the latest Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, the facility will open in early 2027.

Andy Collin, managing director, Latos Data Centres, said: “From robotics to autonomous transportation, real-time AI is set to transform how we live and work. But businesses need totally new data center infrastructure to capitalize on these opportunities. We pioneered neural Edge designs to meet this need. They support the most demanding workloads, are highly energy efficient, and can be built faster and at lower cost than conventional data centers.”

Latos is a new data center firm, breaking cover last year with plans for a 90MW data center campus in Cardiff, Wales.

Quietly founded in 2021, reports of Latos first surfaced in 2022, when ISP Review reported on the company’s request for Code Powers from UK regulator Ofcom as part of a plan to build out a fiber network.

Latos aims to develop 40 sites planned across Britain by 2030. The company said this ‘neural Edge’ network will create a distributed AI processing capability that ensures no location is more than 50 miles (80.4km) from ultra-low latency artificial intelligence services.

Future sites are planned in locations including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow.

Collin continued: “Our nationwide neural Edge network is a fundamental shift from centralized ‘cloud computing’ models. It will help ensure British companies can thrive using AI, rather than being constrained by yesterday’s technology.”

Located in the northeast of England, Middlesbrough has a minimal data center market.

Lumen has previously operated a former Level 3 facility in the city, while Stratus Technologies (now Unity) operated a facility in the area. UK fiber firm CityFibre has a two-cabin fiber exchange in Stockton near Grangefield Academy on Oxbridge Avenue.

Redcar & Cleveland Council gave the green light for a 48MW data center campus on a former chemicals plant site in 2023, but it’s unclear if work has begun.

A large data center development recently gained planning approval near Middlebrough at the Teesworks brownfield site. Google is reportedly linked to the project.