DUBLIN - Ireland hosts one of the world's fast-growing clusters of data centres, but is running headlong into the difficult consequences.
The server farms powering global tech giants now consume a fifth of the small nation's electricity, igniting concerns over both grid stability and Ireland's commitments to boost renewable energies and cut gas emissions.
Already home to over 80 data centres, a 2024 report by US-based researchers Synergy ranked Dublin behind only the US state of Virginia and Beijing in its density of such state-of-the-art facilities built for colossal amounts of data.
Vast energy-hungry warehouses around Dublin's ring road host thousands of servers handling massive amounts of cloud computing, storage and AI demands for data giants like Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.
The facilities are a quietly purring economic engine, injecting billions in investment, employment and anchoring the tech multinationals which, coupled with big pharma, fund over half of Ireland's corporate-tax take, according to analysts.
But doubts are mounting over the environmental cost.
Data centres' share of Irish metered electricity consumption reached 22 percent by 2024, compared to an EU-wide average of 2-3 percent, according to official data.
National grid operator EirGrid projects that data centres could account for 30 percent of demand by 2030 as the growth of artificial intelligence technology accelerates.
That is equivalent to powering two million homes for a full year, energy analysts Wood Mackenzie said in July.
Some data centres in high-pressure areas in Dublin have already turned to generators for back-up, which are usually gas and oil-powered, said Leonard.
That could hamper Ireland's already fraught efforts to meet EU 2030 climate targets that threaten multi-billion euro fines if missed.
EirGrid plans capacity upgrades to accommodate future data centre demand more evenly nationwide. And the government has said a new strategy will be published soon with a pledge to update the grid within five years.
But experts doubt whether those plans will deliver in time to meet demand.