Ireland an Example To Rest of World What Not To Do With Data Centres – UN

Artificial Intelligence doesn’t exist as a ghost in the machine you know, living like digital spirits in the cloud alone, oh no. The Chatgpts, Co-Pilots, Claudes and Groks of the world require physical infrastructure. And this infrastructure is, to put it mildly, controversial.

A recent poll from Gallup shows that Americans for example are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of having a data centre built in their local areas…

Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor…The centers cover large areas of land, require extensive amounts of electricity to operate and need substantial water to cool the equipment, raising concerns about their impact on the environment and local electric bills.

Gallup helpfully goes on to explain exactly why these centres generate such opposition

Opponents of data centers have more varied reasons for their position, but they focus mostly on environmental concerns. Half of opponents mention data centers’ excessive use of resources, including 18% each mentioning their use of water and energy. Sixteen percent mention a related environmental concern of pollution, including noise pollution and air and water pollution.

Data Centres of course are not just hosted in the US, but all over the worlds, with many governments competing to host the physical infrastructure of the coming digital world with one of the countries participating in the digital gold rush being the Republic of Ireland. Earlier this month the Irish Times ran a story on a report issued by the United Nations pointing out in their zeal to be at the forefront, the Republic has not adequately prepared its energy infrastructure to handle the vastly increased demand the Data Centres will impose…

The report highlights the heavy demand data centres place on Ireland’s energy systems, with 21 per cent of all electricity here used for data processing. That figure is forecast to grow to more than 30 per cent in the next few years as data centres expand to facilitate the huge processing capacity needed by AI, while proposed rules to let them provide their own electricity are expected to increase fossil-fuel use….Ireland is described as “a live cautionary example” of energy demand running ahead of infrastructure, with data centres using electricity equivalent to all urban households combined.

The article also quotes Nathan Quinlan of the School of Engineering at University of Galway saying that

We already have a steep hill to climb to build an energy system that’s compatible with a liveable climate and a thriving society, and become independent of volatile fossil fuel supplies…Ireland needs strong and purposeful decisions around our approach to this resource-intensive, aggressively expanding new industry that can potentially undermine our local and global efforts to avert the worst outcomes in the climate crisis.

The report itself, Environmental Cost of AI’s Energy Use: Carbon, Water and Land Footprints, can be found at here.

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