Google’s Irish bit barn plans denied over eco shortfall Google's plans to expand its Dublin datacenter presence have been derailed by Irish county officials who say the project isn't sustainable enough. The decision, issued last week but previously unreported, saw the South Dublin County Council deny Google's ten-year planning permit to build a 72,400 square meter data storage …
I wonder if the sums just didn't add up for the local authority. RTE report that only 50 jobs will be created to keep it running, and I think Ireland's model is low corporate taxes but high personal taxes. 50 permanent jobs may not make up for the downsides.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0827/1466894-permission-for-google-data-centre-denied/
'Growing demands of AI'
No Google, it is merely a play thing, not doing any actual real work. Now you're imposing it on your users at the top of search results, without asking, which I'm never in million years going to trust to give me a correct answer.
The demand AI has at the moment is purely novelty. It will die down considerably.
The demand AI has at the moment is purely novelty. It will die down considerably.
I live in hope. I also think AlphaGoo neatly demonstrates why AI sucks by it's own implementations. The more it's embedded AI into search and YT recommendations, the worse those recommendations and search results have become.
I also don't blame Ireland for putting the brakes on DCs given their insatiable demands on resources. PPAs may suit generators, but they often just drive up the cost of energy and don't necessarily add capacity. Especially when a lot of Ireland's energy is supplied via UK interconnectors. Which is also the cascading problem with reliance on unreliables.
> Especially when a lot of Ireland's energy is supplied via UK interconnectors.
I think you meant "Especially when a lot of Ireland's energy is supplied via GB interconnectors."
An "all island" electric grid for both generation and distribution operates in both Ireland and Northern Ireland (which is why the UK's "National Grid" is actually a GB National Grid, not a UK one)
There are interconnectors between Ireland and Wales (so yes an interconnector with the UK), and between Northern Ireland and Scotland (and so is a interconnector *within* the UK / a interconnector with GB).
From memory there is a planned interconnector between Ireland and France due to be in service in a couple of years time.
As for how much is supplied by the interconnectors: https://www.eirgrid.ie/grid/real-time-system-information
An "all island" electric grid for both generation and distribution operates in both Ireland and Northern Ireland (which is why the UK's "National Grid" is actually a GB National Grid, not a UK one)
Yep, Ireland is an island.
From memory there is a planned interconnector between Ireland and France due to be in service in a couple of years time.
Yep. It's an odd setup, and much like telecomms. So Ireland is pretty much served via the UK, although there are some transatlantic and fibres routing to France now. But it always struck me as an odd place to build European datacentres when it's effectively at the end of the line. Traffic often ended up routing via London & the exchanges there, and sometimes via the US to get to other European customers. So not the best place for latency, but ideal for tax minimisation.
It seems much the same for power, with Ireland being the end of the line for that. So if (when) there are power shortages, Ireland will probably end up paying a lot more. Or it'll just be more opportunities for energy traders to profit by round-tripping electricity energy via interconnectors. Ofgem is apparently peering myopically at this to kinda, sorta figure out if this is anti-consumer/anti-competitive behaviour.. Which should be easy because it's pretty much the same way Enron gamed California's energy consumers.
> So Ireland is pretty much served via the UK, although there are some transatlantic and fibres routing to France now.
> But it always struck me as an odd place to build European datacentres when it's effectively at the end of the line.
I agree that historically the island of Ireland relied almost entirely on connectivity via GB with the exception of a single USA link. I also agree that this meant that Ireland becoming the "centre" of Europe's data centre industry did seem odd (especially as damage to submarine cables due ot weather is a risk).
Also since Brexit there is the potential for data protection-related concerns (Hello Bude!) due to a large percentage of traffic between Ireland and other EU member countries going via a non-EU country(UK)...
Northern Ireland has had a direct USA submarine cable connection since 2010.
In Ireland there are currently 4 transatlantic cables that land in Ireland (Cork, Dublin, Killala, and Lecanvey).
The Havfrue cable also directly connects Ireland to Denmark and Norway. Since last year there is the IRIS cable in place linking Ireland to Iceland.
There were plans for a cable to France (Spain also?) but that doesn't seem to have progressed.
Looking further ahead, in 2027 the Far North Fibre is due to link Ireland to USA (Alaska) and Norway (and onwards to Japan).
> Traffic often ended up routing via London & the exchanges there, and sometimes via the US to get to other
> European customers. So not the best place for latency, but ideal for tax minimisation.
I assume you are thinking in "TCP/IP" terms when you talk about "routing via London & the exchanges there". However I'm sure it is likely that DCs in Ireland have leased "circuits" to destinations in mainland Europe where the "circuit" appears to be a direct link from Ireland to, for example, Frankfurt but in reality it is a combination of a Ireland-GB submarine link and a GB-<somewhere in EU> submarine link plus a terrestial (raw, non TCP/IP) link, between those 2 submarine cables.
> It seems much the same for power, with Ireland being the end of the line for that.
Are you suggesting that Ireland relocate itself from being an island to being instead physically in the "middle" of Europe? lol
When you're an island on the western edge of Europe it is kind of hard to avoid being "end of the line" for power feeds... especially as running a (DC) interconnector to the USA wouldn't be feasible/financially viable.
"...at the top of search results, without asking, which I'm never in million years going to trust to give me a correct answer.
The demand AI has at the moment is purely novelty. It will die down considerably."
I suspect eventually you simply won't be able to tell if the answer is AI generated or not. Even if a Google search returns a bona fide website as the reference for its answer, you still won't know if that website content is AI or human generated and checked.
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