Evantic Capital Founder: UK Needs Affordable Power Plants for AI Growth

Matt Miller, founder of venture fund Evantic Capital and former Sequoia Capital partner, stated: without large-scale investments in affordable energy infrastructure, the UK risks losing in the global race for artificial intelligence.

Energy as a Bottleneck

Miller manages Evantic Capital — a British fund with $400 million in assets, founded in 2025. In an interview with Bloomberg Tech: Europe, he explained that the rapid growth of AI requires enormous volumes of electricity, and British infrastructure is not yet ready to meet this demand at the necessary scale. The problem is not only the amount of capacity, but also its cost.

Expensive electricity undermines the competitiveness of data centers and AI startups: companies increasingly choose their infrastructure jurisdiction based on, among other things, electricity tariffs. The USA, Sweden, France, and a number of Middle Eastern countries are actively building computational infrastructure, attracting companies precisely through low operating costs. If the UK does not solve the problem of affordable energy in the coming years, it risks becoming a less attractive platform for AI infrastructure.

According to analysts' forecasts, global electricity consumption by data centers will more than double by 2030. For companies training large language models, electricity bills are one of the main expense items alongside engineer salaries.

Why Nuclear

Among the tools to solve this problem, Miller singled out nuclear energy. It is capable of simultaneously providing cheap, reliable, and low-carbon electricity on an industrial scale — three properties critical for the AI industry:

• Baseload power — data centers operate around the clock, and nuclear plants provide stable generation unlike solar and wind energy
• Low carbon footprint — major technology companies are bound by strict ESG obligations to investors and customers
• Scalability — small modular reactors (SMR) are built faster than traditional nuclear plants and fit better into existing power grids
• Price predictability — long-term contracts with nuclear operators protect against gas market volatility

The UK has already announced plans to build new nuclear facilities, but critics point to chronic delays: Hinkley Point C has been under construction with years-long delays against the schedule and significant budget overruns.

A Signal to Policymakers

Miller's position is remarkable because it comes not from an energy industry lobbyist, but from an investor with a portfolio in technology. This is an important signal: the energy supply issue has become part of standard investment analysis when assessing countries' attractiveness for technology business.

"We need affordable power plants, including nuclear energy, for the country to compete in AI," —

Matt Miller, Bloomberg Tech: Europe.

Before founding Evantic Capital, Miller worked as a partner at Sequoia Capital — one of the world's most influential venture funds. His position reflects a global trend: Microsoft, Google, and Amazon in 2024–2025 concluded direct long-term contracts with nuclear plant operators in the USA to provide AI data centers with reliable baseload energy with a low carbon footprint. Whoever first guarantees their data centers with nuclear power gains the opportunity to scale AI workloads without environmental constraints and price risks.

What It Means

The energy deficit is transforming from a technical problem into a strategic one. Countries that have ensured affordable and reliable electricity gain an advantage in attracting AI companies — those who delay risk losing it. For the UK, claiming a role as Europe's AI hub, solving the energy issue becomes as much a priority as visa policy for attracting technical specialists and government funding for fundamental research.