Ireland struggles to manage power for its many data centers

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For years, Ireland has been embracing major U.S. tech giants, building data centers that consume massive amounts of power. But demands on the national grid have threatened blackouts, and experts and activists are trying to find an ecological compromise. The International Energy Agency expects the data centers will consume one-third of Ireland’s electricity by 2026—a far greater burden than anywhere else in Europe. Fears of rolling blackouts led Ireland’s grid operator to place an unofficial moratorium on new data centers near Dublin until 2028. Darragh Adelaide, a South Dublin County Council member, expresses the strains the data centers are placing on resources. He says, “When you look at the electricity use in Ireland, 21 percent is used by data centers, which is a massive amount. When you look at water use, each one uses between 500,000 liters and five million. It gets particularly bad when it’s a very warm day or a set of warm days. And so, when you’re looking at and comparing the resources that they use, the amount of carbon they produce to the amount of jobs they provide for the local community, I don’t think it’s worth having in this local area. 40 of the 80 data centers in Ireland are located right here.” Adelaide also voices concerns about the vast amounts of users' personal data stored in these data centers and questions how important it is to retain this information. “When you look at what the data centers are actually storing, it’s a lot of terabytes of personal information on what sites you go to and how long you spend scrolling on a TikTok, that sort of thing," he says. "It’s a lot of personal information, that's not necessary, stored so it could be sold on to marketers and used for AI and that sort of stuff. I think the reality is that data isn’t necessary. If we have a moratorium on data centers, it will force these big companies on maybe not storing so much personal information on people.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.