If tech companies need data centres nearby, then why, in the US, is Virginia the data centre hub (this article seems to say) and not Silicon Valley, 3,000 miles away?
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I presume Silicon Valley is too expensive and Virginia is a secondary tech hub? I don't know for sure.
I'm pretty sure the tech companies are very insistent that they need data centres here, it isn't some Irish cargo cult.
Yes but just because the tech companies insist on it and it is good for them doesn't mean it is good for aireland and the government has to agree to them.
They are major employers, and major taxpayers. That doesn't give them a blank cheque. But if we can supply them with clean power, the cost to ireland is low and the benefit high.
Yes they are big, maybe what, 7% of jobs and 12% of GDP? And data centres consume 21% of electricity and growing? Look, no doubt tech is big and important but it seems like they are taking more than their share of Ireland's electricity and water.
Those are problems for which we have readily-available solutions that are relatively easy to implement and politically uncontroversial. Most of our problems are much harder!
Some data has to be kept in the EU to comply with GDPR. Ireland is a mild climate where it is cheaper and more energy efficient to cool data centres. It is a politically stable business friendly jurisdiction. our benefit? It keeps tech executives based here to supervise their most important asset.
I would recommend anyone thinking that Ireland leaning into investment in data centres is a responsible or foresighted policy to read @edzitron.com's https://www.wheresyoured.at/bubble-trouble/ (or actually any of his recent long reads)
As far as I know, and I'm open to correction, the big investment in data centres is coming from the tech companies themselves. It's not the Irish state building them, or the IDA.
The state isn't building them but it does explicitly support their construction - the promise that "digitalisation and decarbonisation can be complementary" sounds very much like it is coming from the tech companies themselves too! And we don't have a great record with policy dictated by industry...
Any news story is going to contain only part of what was said, but even that story contains enough to make it clear that Eamon thinks there has to be limits and rules around the construction of data centres...
"we had a problem, because we left the door wide open, and there was an infinite demand for new data centres coming... we would not be able to cope... we immediately said, put the alarm bells on. We have to be careful here because ... we can’t just promise we can get new connections.”
“we will bring new data centres in, but we have to wait until our grid is able to cope with that, and we can be certain we can do it in low-carbon way, which I believe we can”.
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I'm pretty sure the tech companies are very insistent that they need data centres here, it isn't some Irish cargo cult.