Today, following on from my recent dive into the worrying world of Ireland’s mobile network tower industry, and its potential threat to our national security, I’m taking a look at another controversial sector on the tech landscape: Ireland’s Data Centers.
To humour myself, I’m also going to spell centre in the internationalised form center to highlight the US corporate-led nature of Ireland’s data-centers. Now, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), it is projected that “Irish” data-centers will be consuming 33% of Ireland’s electricity grid by 2026. Varying reports exist as to the exact number of data-centers currently in operation in Ireland, due to the fast-streaming of so many new ones over the last couple of years.
Data Center Map, an industry leading resource site for all things data-centers in the world, puts the current number in Ireland at 95 across six counties. But, as recently as mid June 2024, RTE reported only 82 in operation with approximately another dozen under construction. In addition, planning is approved for about another 40 data-centers with others in the pipeline. Suffice to say, by 2026 approximately 130 buildings will be eating up one third of our electricity.
For the past number of years, much media attention has been fixated on Ireland’s housing crisis, yet, almost no attention is drawn to the nation’s electricity crisis. Which is curious considering it is a looming problem of equal if not greater significance than the housing one. Now, for any newbies casually strolling in here, let me make one point abundantly clear:
The expansion of data-centers = the expansion of A.I. and A.I. technologies
While, there is a certain inevitability about the advancement of A.I. it serves no-ones interests to pretend the proliferation of data-centers is focused on ensuring we never lose any old digital photos of granny or an old episode of Friends. But, if you don’t believe my ramblings on this topic, well, a recent report by International law firm Mason, Hayes and Curran spells it out in full.
“ AI has significantly driven the demand for data centre capacity. As AI technologies scale globally, the amount of processed data has increased and the scale and power requirements of the data centres have increased “ – full report here
Unfortunately, RTE, the mainstream press, and both sides of the political aisle in Ireland rarely mention A.I. when championing the cause of data-center creation, which is one of the reasons this substack keeps harping on about it. Instead, we get guff similiar to the following article extract published by RTE in April 2024.
“ Whether you realise it or not, every streaming show you watch, every match you make on Tinder and every flight you book is facilitated by a data centre “ RTE Brainstorm Apr 11, 2024.
Now, while this is true in the narrowest of forms, it is certainly not anywhere near the overall ugly truth. The implicit message with articles such as the one above is that Ireland’s data-centers service the digital needs of the Irish nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Irish data centers service the needs of transnational corporations and their profit models, first and foremost.
The introduction of the word corporations into any Irish conversation nowadays means we must immediately begin sniffing around for evidence of supportive government policy documents and Ireland Inc. Because, the current frightening data-center and electricity vista could not be nightmared into existance without government promotion, and by government promotion I mean the Irish Development Authority ( IDA) and the bureaucratic elite. The agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment.
The broad strategy for attracting and championing the construction of more data centers to Ireland is highlighted in a couple of documents. First, the 2018 Government statement entitled: “ The Role Of Data Centres in Ireland’s Enterprise Strategy “, and the second a July 2021 word-porn monstrosity called: Submission by IDA Ireland to the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) Consultation on ‘Proposed Direction to the System Operators related to Data Centre Grid Connection’
A summary of both might go something as follows:
Yes, the IDA and government bureaucracy strongly supports the development of more and more data centres in Ireland.
“ IDA Ireland views data centres as critical infrastructure for developing both Ireland’s and Europe’s digital economies and for strengthening and advancing Ireland’s position as a strategic international location for IT services “
It is interesting to note the continued use of the disarming term IT services rather than A.I. The main economic benefit from data-centers is in the construction phase of them and their relative on-going value to the economy – in terms of jobs or revenue -is in no way comparable to other multinational sectors operating in Ireland. But, the IDA have lovely way of dancing around this thorny problem.
“ Data centres should not be viewed on their own as a separate economic activity. They should be assessed in the context of the total economic value that they bring, the entire jobs they support along the value chain and their role in underpinning the data economy, which will increasingly drive innovation and overall economic activity “
Hmmmmm….
Well, I suppose, at least they mention the data economy……which is A.I.
So, who owns Ireland’s data-centers?
Dublin has become the largest data center hub in Europe, attracting a range of sizes and types of data centers. So, this is a question best answered by dividing it into separate parts.
1. International Tech Giants
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Operate 34 data centre sites across Ireland
Microsoft: operates 12 data centre facilities in Ireland
Google: operates 2 data-centres in Ireland large facility at Grange Castle.
Tik-Tok: operates 2 data-centres in Ireland.
If we examine the AWS example and equate the number of data-centers into electricity we can say Amazon are burning about 590 megawatts of power capacity. Now, in lay-man’s terms, this consumption equates to powering between 120,000-140,000 homes. Now, to allegedly off-set this draw, the same company are invested heavily in the proliferation of Irish windfarms across the Irish country side. The company’s recent wind farm investments in Ireland include:
- County Cork: A 23 megawatt (MW) wind farm, which is now operational.
- County Galway: A 115 MW wind farm project in Ardderroo, under construction
- County Donegal: A wind farm project in Meenbog, under review. The Court of Appeal has ruled that the entire wind farm development is “unauthorised” due to multiple planning deviations13. In April 2024, a High Court order was issued prohibiting further development at the site. So, we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
The main point to note here, though, is big corporates and data center operators are now becoming part of Ireland’s electricity supply chain in a round about manner. I believe if the wind turbines of these farms, destroying the natural beauty of the Irish landscape, were painted in the marketing colours of the companies who actually receive the energy from them people might actually sit up and take notice of a country being robbed of the land beneath its feet. Amazon and others do not usually directly own these wind farms, but instead enters into Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs): Amazon signs agreements to buy electricity from the wind farms without owning the infrastructure. Control, supply, and energy without the ownership foot-print.
But think really hard about this point: We are accelerating the promotion and building of more and more data-centers for transnational corporates, the ones chewing up all of our grid electricity capacity. Then, in turn, to solve the electricity pressure, we are allowing these same transnational corporates to invest and incentivise owners of Irish land and farms to create more windfarms. So the trans-nationals can generate electricity to solve the massive problem the transnational corporates have created in the first place. It is an ongoing transfer of Irish land for trans-national electricity. Obviously, this problem is never going to end while we keep building more data-centers.
2. Colocation and Data Centre Specialists
Co-location specialist companies are a slightly different type of data-center operator. Generally speaking, they provide digital infrastructure for AI related technologies and cloud hosting services to a variety of different businesses under the same roof. As a result, it is very difficult to get visibility on exactly what or how many companies operate in these buildings and what data is stored in the facilities. Roughly 25-30 of this type of smaller data-center company operate the remaining data-centers in Ireland and include names such as Echelon Data Services, Equinix, Cyrus One, Vantage Data-Centers and Edgeconnex. Once again, though, the majority of these companies and data-centers are not Irish owned.
Focus on Equinox
One of the largest of this type of data-center owner in Ireland is Equinix. Equinix operates around 250 data centers across 30 different countries world-wide. Currently, they operate 6 data centers here having recently agreed to acquire two additional data centers from BT, located in CityWest and Ballycoolin, Dublin, for approximately €59 million yoyos. Equinix are also at the planning stages to add a seventh data-center in Ireland.
Equinix is a publicly traded company but as of February 2025 our old friends the “institutional investors “ owned 98% of the company. Similiar, to my last article on the ownership of Ireland’s mobile network towers, the same ownership faces show up here too in the data-center sphere.
Top Institutional Shareholders of Equinix
Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Co.: 13.13%
BlackRock Advisors LLC: 7.85%
State Street Corporations: 6.21%
Equinix data-centers have a customer base that is wide and varied across the software and telecoms sectors. On the software front this includes Electronic Arts, Adobe Software, Facebook and even Microsoft lease space from them too. Telecom providers utilizing their services are international giants like AT&T, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and France Telecom.
So, who Builds the Data Centres.
The construction of data centers is becoming big business in the traditional Irish building sector along with some other companies focused exclusively on data-centre building. As mentioned earlier, over 40 new data centers are in development in Ireland at the moment and usually these involve construction structures extending into hundreds of thousands of square feet. So, the building sector is one area of the Irish economy seeing some benefit in this arena.
Spotlight on Winthrop Technologies.
Winthrop Technologies has grown to become one of the largest and most trusted companies in the data-center sector in Europe with projected 2024 revenues of 2 billion euros. They began focusing on data-center construction in the early 2000s but the company was originally established in 1995 as a mechanical and electrical contractor by Barry English. In April 2024, Blackstone acquired a majority stake of 50.7% in Winthrop Technologies. According to an RTE news article published in April 2024, the remaining 49.3% minority stake is divided between the company’s founder Barry English, Group CEO Anne Dooley, and Managing Director Bernard Keane. While the exact financial details of the transaction with Blackstone were not publicly disclosed, RTE and Business Post sources valued the deal at more than 800 million euro.
The company website shows Winthrop Tech have constructed or are in the process of constructing multiple data centres in Ireland including:
- A 96 MW data centre project in Dublin
- A 19.6 MW data centre in Dublin
- A 14.4 MW data centre in Dublin
- A 22 MW turnkey data centre for a U.S. Hyperscale client in Dublin
- DUB2 – 4 MW of a 12 MW turnkey data centre in Dublin
- DUB-1.1 (8 MW) and DUB-1.2 (10 MW) turnkey data centres in Dublin.
Conclusion
The summation is simple. The Irish model for the future of electricity generation caters for the needs of Big Tech and Big Corporates before the needs of the Irish nation. The revenue streams generated by the data stored in these data-centers – via tech innovation and AI – will again be reaped for the most part by huge trans-national corporations – and many of these new AI businesses will have zero foot-print in Ireland at all but full access to the data stores. In fact, it seems like a complete wealth transfer over the long-term. Irish Land in exchange for massive data-centers and wind-farms under trans-national corporate control. Sure, a few Irish construction companies and a few small Irish owned data-centers might make some money or reap some innovation benefits but other than that Ireland’s data-center policies seem to serve no-one in Ireland but everyone associate with Ireland Inc.
As electricity prices increase for ordinary householders, and with many left without supply for weeks after the recent Storm Éowyn, the soft underbelly of our grid infrastructure was exposed. Yet, our electricity guzzling data-centers seemed to survive unscathed.
Are we facing into a tech-induced electricity famine?
Where a creaking national grid falters for starved Irish consumers but supply is guaranteed for the absentee landlord class operating the nation’s data-centers.