20th November 2024, 10 am at RDS, Dublin, as seated conference goers looked on, a group of climate activists from Extinction Rebellion Ireland (XRI) disrupted Data Centres Ireland's annual conference, by interrupting keynote speaker Barry Lowry. Mr Lowry is the Chief Information Officer for the Irish Government. His talk was titled 'A contextual commentary on AI's contribution to Ireland's data centres industry.' Activists stood up in front of the stage and chanted messages including "We don't want AI Taking Palestinian lives" and ''Genocidal projects, Lavender and Nimbus". The chants reflect that AI is being used for nefarious and unlawful purposes. The group demands a moratorium on data centres in Ireland, as they already use 21% of the country's electricity and many are investing in on-site, private fossil-fuel generation.
Simultaneously a larger group from XRI linked arms in front of the building entrances, impeding conference goers' entry to the annual data centre conference. They blocked the doors holding banners between them and chanting their demands for a moratorium on the building of new data centres. The protestors remained in place until threatened with arrest. They then joined Friends of the Earth Ireland, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Not Here Not Anywhere and others in protesting outside the gates of the RDS, holding banners reading "No More Data Centres,'' and "Moratorium now".
This is the third time XRI has targeted this conference, to draw attention to the rapid growth of data centres in Ireland, which they say is incompatible with climate action. Ireland currently has 92 data centres in operation, and this year their electricity usage overtook the total amount used by Irish households. The total electricity usage of data centres has risen from 5% of Ireland's grid in 2015 to 21% in 2023. The EU average for this figure is 2%. 1, 2
Protestor Thomas Morelli, an apprentice mechanic from Dublin said, 'The ongoing genocide of Palestine is being facilitated and worsened by the development of AI. Project NIMBUS and Project Lavender are two examples. Ireland also exports a considerable amount of data storage space to Israeli entities - this is unacceptable and inhumane'
Protestor, Tom Spillane, a student from Limerick said, "The growth of data centres here is out of control. Of course a certain amount of the data stored in data centres is important. However, the vast majority of the data is 'junk data' - approximately 90% of it is digital junk, used for advertising stuff we don't even need and for mass user surveillance.''
He continued, 'We have to press pause on the growth of data centres. The energy demands of data centres are running rampant and our grid has reached capacity. The government has been allowing data centres to build their own private gas-fired power stations to power them under the "Private Wires" programme. This is outrageous."
Protestor Maureen O'Connor, a retired teacher living in Newbridge said, 'The continued and accelerated development of data centres in Ireland is devastating. There is no chance of us meeting our EU 2030 energy reduction targets with continued development of data centres in Ireland. This will result in billions of Euros in fines, which the taxpayer will pay the brunt of, while big techs profits will continue to soar.'
Fiachra, an XRI protester and agriculture worker from Dublin, said "The growth in AI is causing a huge energy demand at a time when we need to be focusing on degrowth to transition away from fossil fuels. All the renewable energy generation Ireland has developed in the past year has immediately been far outstripped by the growth in data centres and their power usage, making them incompatible with climate action."
Fiachra continued, "Many of the societal effects of AI seem to only contribute to further wealth concentration, insecure working conditions and privacy violations. We have to ask are any of the benefits of this technology worth jeopardising our chances of a liveable future?"
1. https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/libraryResearch/2024/2024-07-23_spotlight-data-centres-and-energy_en.pdf
2. https://bitpower.ie/images/Reports/2024_Q4_Market_Update_Ireland_v1-2.pdf
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