AIBU to point out that datacentres don't provide local employment?

Oh quite. But they run the show. Customers be damned.

Although, these days a lot of those shareholders are possibly pension funds and whatnot....still moving the wealth in one direction, but still. Shareholders are people too!

Shareholders first Every Single Time.

It's not just nice. IT's THE LAW !

I think you are just not thinking about the shareholders enough 🤔

Ofgem gets involved:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q90q9qnn2o

This seems to be more about places in the queue for the National Grid to build the connection infrastructure, but the article also says:
"the amount of electricity capacity being requested by projects seeking to connect to the grid had risen from 41 GW to 125 GW in the past year, reflecting a sharp increase in demand. This is significantly more than double 2025's peak electricity demand in Britain of around 46 GW."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64939558

This is really simple…. Britain can be ahead of the wave in this area, and benefit economically, or pay other countries tries to provide these services at high prices

The mere construction of these will provide jobs

To be fair that is a poor example, you have cut off the main car park and the business park the DC's are on has huge parking areas so it was never included in the design (I work on the park).

That being said the overall point does stand, that permanent staff in DC's are very low (again I know, I work in the early stage design).

You mean "Won't".

The constraints of a capitalist society means that "not economically viable" is the same thing as "can't".

BBC News about to do a segment on datacentres and the National Grid.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/07/london-campaign-planned-ai-datacentre-brick-lane

Just seen this.....

I really don’t care if they do or not tbh

https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/07/07/uk-guts-planning-red-tape-so-datacenters-can-bypass-the-neighbors-faster/5266865

Datacenter growth may run into a power wall by 2030
Energy consumed by datacenters is set to grow 26 percent this year thanks to AI, and grid supply may be unable to keep pace with demand by 2030, Gartner warns.
The research giant expects global datacenter electricity consumption to reach 565 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2026, as power demand rises from 104 GW in 2025 to 132 GW this year.
This is higher than the 500 TWh per year Gartner estimated two years ago that AI-optimized servers would consume by 2027.
...
Power grid operators and datacenter developers in the US in particular are in a bind, as The Register reported recently, and energy analysts can't see an easy way out.
https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/06/10/datacenter-growth-may-run-into-a-power-wall-by-2030/5253635

@Kinglassielassie Thx.

Well energy is just another resource.

If you follow a political system that makes resources commodities then you have to follow the environment it creates.

I can't say I particularly wanted that sort of world. But hey, democracy.

E2A: Other resources are water, air and humans.

And one might want to bear in mind that opening such a datacentre without ILI building the additional power generation infrastructure could cause energy shortages. In fact even if they built their own generator, they'd still have to buy gas on the world market.

No one at ILI seems to want to talk about this. Whenever they mention power they try to obfuscate and wave the problem away.

A datacentre of this magnitude could lead to price increases and even brown-outs. A wealthy datacentre would be able to out-compete local people, business and facilities for the available power – including people who need to heat their homes or run medical equipment because they have cancer, and including the local hospitals delivering that cancer treatment.

This caught my eye last week. There is a lot being thrown at energy generation and storage right now.

Sodium batteries are starting to look viable too.

And every watt of balcony solar that can be harvested and used - whether directly or through storage - is one watt less you need to find from the grid.

https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/07/03/startup-targets-datacenters-with-3d-printed-nuclear-reactor-module/5266480

Their plan is to use the energy currently being used by everyone else. They can get the cabling in, sure enough, directly and via the National Grid.

But they're not planning to generate the energy. Just take what's currently being used by Scottish residents and businesses.

An increase of 20% in energy demand is massive. Massive. It can't be absorbed by putting up a few solar panels...

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/business-environment/business/5504466/fife-auchtertool-data-centre-ceo-mark-wilson/
The 52-year-old told The Courier: “Fife is great for us, due to the amount of renewables that have been built in the area. It means we’re able to do private wire from existing wind farms, from battery projects, from solar projects. We’re able to get connections into the grid. So we can get power purchase agreements from offshore wind.

@Kinglassielassie If energy is the issue, why are they suggesting to build the data centers at those locations?
And I’m not being argumentative, the data centers will surely fail if they cannot get the power they need. There must be a plan?

I’m surprised/not surprised that there are posters saying that cancer doesn’t need a cure.
These people obviously haven’t had a loved one turn into a living skeleton in front of their own eyes before suffering a horrendous and terrible death.

So not just one man and his dog on security and a couple of cleaners then! Are you able to say roughly how many on-site employees in the largest ones?

Space construction is mainly engineering, really. Even the Apollo programme. Very few "can'ts" as long as you throw enough money at it.