Karen Meechan: Scotland's tech entrepreneurs are proud of being Scottish

It's no surprise that Karen Meechan is a fan of Scottish technology firms. It’s basically in her job description.  

In her role as the chief executive of ScotlandIS, the membership organisation for Scotland's digital technology industry, Meechan has been representing the sector for the last 20 years.  

“We're very ambitious, very innovative, very smart people in this sector who are proud to be Scottish,” says Meechan. “Tech companies are proud to be based in Scotland, want to grow their business in Scotland and want to support the ecosystem in Scotland.”

As of 2024, Scotland’s digital technologies sector was made up of around 10,395 registered businesses, employing over 87,700 people. The sector generated over £6.8bn in GVA for the Scottish economy in 2024 alone.  

One sector that has seen significant growth in Scotland is in the data centre economy, fuelled by the seemingly unstoppable rise of artificial intelligence (AI). There are currently 16 data centres in Scotland, with that number predicted to grow as the need for AI computing power increases. Data centres are a crucial component of AI systems, allowing them to perform tasks like inference.  

AI inference is the process of “using” an AI model, like ChatGPT, to answer questions on a dataset that it hasn’t been trained on. This process is very energy intensive, with a recent study from Google showing that the per-prompt energy impact of using a chatbot is the equivalent of watching TV for around nine seconds.

Scotland is seen as an ideal place to host these data centres, as the national grid generates more renewable electricity than it consumes, providing an abundant power source to run data centres. Scotland’s cold climate is also a draw, as the energy costs of cooling the vast servers that make AI possible are reduced.

“When you look at our energy sector and what Scotland produces, combined with how AI will impact the need for computing power, we absolutely need to look at that data centre space,” says Meechan. “But it's also about creating that momentum around what else we can do in Scotland that doesn't just create a nation that is full of data centres.”

In September, Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, raised concerns that the UK could turn into a “vassal state” for tech companies based in the US. Speaking after a trade deal that secured £150bn worth of US tech investment into the UK, Clegg warned that while the investment may look good on paper, it was just “sloppy seconds” from Silicon Valley that would create a country wholly reliant on US tech firms.  

“These companies need those infrastructure resources anyway,” said Clegg. “They’re building datacentres all over the world. We’re a kind of vassal state technologically, we really are. The moment our companies, our tech companies, start developing any scale or ambition, they have to go to California, because we don’t have the growth capital here.”

Meechan thinks that the threat is overblown.

“I don't think that we will just be a nation of data centres exporting data out,” says Meechan. “Because our community is far too innovative and ambitious to allow that to happen. We have founders and entrepreneurs here who want to do great things with their businesses, they want to innovate and they want to create.”

Despite this, it remains appealing for tech companies to develop in Scotland before setting their sights on a move to the US, where investment and scalability options are infinitely larger. For example, the growth of AI has led to an investment from large technology firms of over $155bn in the last year alone, more than 20 times the total value of the Scottish tech sector. You can see why that level of investment might draw companies across the pond to the sunny shores of Silicon Valley.

However, Meechan still believes that Scottish technology firms will continue to develop and grow in the country. She says that in the past successful Scottish businesses may have sold up, but their founders stayed on in Scotland, investing in local businesses to create a circular startup economy.  

“I think what our sector has is that pride of being Scottish,” says Meechan. “They want to support the ecosystem, and they want to support their community. They're very proud to be Scottish and of being a successful Scottish business so I don't think we will see a mass exodus.”