The rapid expansion of data centers has become one of the most tangible expressions of the artificial intelligence revolution. But debate about their environmental, economic and social impact threatens their future development. And rightly so. Although the digital economy is often seen as weightless, every cloud service and AI application depends on massive physical infrastructure that takes up land, consumes energy, uses water and requires ever-increasing investment.
International experience suggests that as the data center industry scales up, tensions emerge. In Ireland, data centers accounted for 21% of the country’s electricity consumption in 2023 and could reach 32% this year. In the US, their share of demand is expected to triple from 4% in 2023 to a projected 12% by 2028. No surprise, then, that this is a source of growing political and public concern. A Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans oppose data center construction in their local community.