EU tech chief says bloc needs to triple data centre capacity within seven years

Henna Virkkunen said it is important that the bloc accelerates AI infrastructure investment. Picture: Finbarr O'Rourke

The EU will need to triple its data centre capacity in the next five to seven years, the bloc’s tech chief has said, as energy use by the facilities comes under scrutiny.

Ireland is hosting a major summit on artificial intelligence (AI) as part of its presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Data centre critics protested against the event, saying that “energy vampires and job robbers are not welcome”.

Speaking at the start of the conference, the EU’s tech chief said it is important that the bloc accelerates AI infrastructure investment.

European Commission vice president with responsibility for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, said: “We know that we don’t have enough of the infrastructure which is needed to deploy AI and to be strong in this sector.

“So we have estimated that, for example, we have to triple our data centre capacity in five to seven years’ time, and in the same time, we know that our citizens want that we are investing in a sustainable manner, and that’s why we are looking — with the data centres also — for the best, most energy-efficient systems that we can use that people can trust.” 

The EU is now supporting member states to build AI factories, she said. "We have now an open call for gigafactories that we should have even more powerful supercomputers in the coming years and months than we have today.” 

The Government billed the event as “one of the most significant gatherings of AI leaders and policymakers held in Europe this year”.

Energy consumption

Earlier in the week, further education minister James Lawless said the Government was ensuring data centres were delivering renewable energy to match their consumption — in a comment questioned by the opposition.

However, Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan pointed to a Climate Change Advisory Council report which stated that there is a “well-established trend of data centres cannibalising any increase in Irish renewable capacity” 

She said: “The renewable energy we build should be replacing fossil fuels so that people’s bills come down as well as our emissions. Instead, the Government’s plan is to funnel all our renewables into data centres.” 

She likened letting data centres connect before delivering renewables to “buying a pig in a poke” and said communities will not see the benefit in bills.

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Ahead of a protest outside the RDS, People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy described data centres as “the toxic waste of the 21st century”.

He said: “They consume almost a quarter of our electricity, paying just half the electricity rate that households must pay, and driving up electricity prices for everybody else.

“They are consuming increasing volumes of our water and making it impossible to meet our climate targets. This is the inevitable outcome of a Government that puts itself at the service of Big Tech regardless of the consequences for the rest of society.”