CommonAI selects Kao Data to host the UK's Scaling Inference Lab - providing a national testbed for next-generation AI infrastructure
As part of the agreement, CommonAI will deploy at least five, high-density AI clusters at Kao Data's Harlow campus - giving UK startups access to high-density rack-scale infrastructure to develop emerging AI technologies.
LONDON, Oct. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kao Data, the specialist developer and operator of data centres engineered for AI and advanced computing, has been chosen by CommonAI to host its pioneering, AI Scaling Inference Lab at its data centre campus in Harlow.
Funded by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and delivered by CommonAI, the lab provides a neutral environment where emerging AI technologies are put to the test and benchmarked against commercial systems - prioritising rapid iteration, open collaboration and long-term sustainability.
CommonAI chose Kao Data because of its industry-leading sustainability and energy efficiency credentials, its reputation as the UK's premier destination for high-density AI and supercomputing workloads, and its advantageous location between UK's cutting-edge, AI start-up communities based in London and Cambridge.
Under the agreement, CommonAI will deploy a series of high-density, GPU-accelerated AI clusters within two dedicated technology suites. Each cluster tests a distinct approach to AI infrastructure including pipeline parallelism, heterogeneous orchestration and nanosecond optical circuit switching, with all five clusters aiming to become operational by early 2027.
The deployment combines a deliberately diverse mix of GPUs and accelerators, including NVIDIA HGX B300 systems built on its Blackwell Ultra architecture, NVIDIA H200 NVL and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, and AMD Instinct MI350X accelerators – all of which are housed within Supermicro, MSI, Fujitsu PRIMERGY and Dell PowerEdge servers and powered by 100% certified renewable energy.
"Kao Data's Harlow campus is perfectly situated between London and Cambridge, two of the UK's most important AI hubs, making it the ideal home for the Scaling Inference Lab," said David Stringer, Partnerships Lead, Scaling Inference Lab at CommonAI. "With advanced levels of security and a distinctive design, the campus provides us with a solid environment to welcome startups, investors and policymakers into the lab, and provides UK innovators with a neutral place to prove their technologies at rack scale - strengthening and supporting the Government's wider AI ambitions."
"Kao Data has a long heritage of hosting some of the UK's most advanced AI and supercomputing workloads, and we are proud to become home to the Scaling Inference Lab," said Spencer Lamb, Chief Executive Officer at Kao Data. "The work taking place at our Harlow campus will help shape the next generation of UK AI, ensuring the country remains a leader in AI development while meeting the growing demand for sovereign, homegrown AI infrastructure and the resources needed to support the country's world-leading startup community."
ARIA launched the Scaling Inference Lab earlier this year with a £50 million commitment and in June the UK Government announced more than £20 million in additional funding to establish a world-class national capability for new AI compute systems.
As such, the Scaling Inference Lab will build a experimental clusters on a 6-month cadence, offering superfast access to shared, high-performance infrastructure resources so that innovative startups can plug their technologies into complete rack-scale systems and test them against the latest emerging workloads.
The Scaling Inference Lab's technology partners include Quettaflop AI, Callosum and Oriole Networks, with further partners to be announced. To learn more about the lab and the hypotheses being tested, visit scalinginference.org.
About Kao Data
Kao Data leads the industry, pioneering the development and operation of UK and European data centres engineered for AI and advanced computing. With hyperscale-inspired facilities east and west of London, and northern England's largest data centre planned for Greater Manchester, we are home to technology's most demanding computing infrastructure.
Its award-winning, NVIDIA DGX-Ready certified data centres are designed, engineered, and operated by one of the industry's most respected teams. Together, this provides colocation customers deploying mission-critical AI, enterprise, and cloud workloads with a secure, scalable, and sustainable compute environment, backed by a guarantee of 100% uptime.
Kao Data's data centre portfolio includes more than 237 MW of IT load, either currently operational, under development or planned – all of which is under-pinned by the highest energy efficiency, sustainability and ESG credentials.
Backed by leading international investors, and with several pioneering 'industry firsts' to our name, Kao Data represents the future in industrial scale, high-capacity data centres for AI and the next generation of compute.
About CommonAI C.I.C.
CommonAI CIC is a non-profit membership organisation dedicated to collaborative engineering for the safe and responsible development of foundational AI technologies. It builds shared infrastructure that organisations can use to run and improve AI systems in real-world conditions, with sovereignty, certainty and efficiency.
About the Scaling Inference Lab
Funded by ARIA and delivered by CommonAI, the Scaling Inference Lab is a neutral environment where emerging AI technologies are tested at rack scale alongside commercial systems. Building a new experimental cluster every six months, the lab gives startups shared infrastructure to validate their technologies, and provides governments and investors with data-driven insights to guide future AI infrastructure decisions.
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