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We all use the internet everyday and we need to infrastructure that allows us to do that. But \u2026 I do have my reservations.<\/p>\n The massive increase in data centres is being driven by the rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI). You know, Chat GPT and the first item when you search on Google.<\/p>\n AI, or more properly Machine Learning \u2013 it isn\u2019t intelligent, clearly has it\u2019s uses. AI can scan medical tests results faster and more accurately than humans, but it\u2019s far from infallible. A barrister was struck off recently for citing legal cases that didn\u2019t exist when they used AI to write their client\u2019s defence.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s the new big thing and the IT giants \u2013 Google, Meta and of course Microsoft \u2013 are jumping over each other to expand their capacity by building data centres like the one at Stourton right across the world.<\/p>\n Another word of warning. Expert IT watchers like John Naughton (emeritus professor of the public understanding of technology at the British Open University no less) are clear that this a bubble and that it will burst, just as previous IT booms have come to a swift end. Remember all the start ups that attracted multi-million investment as Web 2.0 took off? Most of them never turned a profit and the investors were left to count the cost.<\/p>\n So what is a data centre? It very simply a building filled with servers \u2013 computers. The servers consume a lot of electricity and generate a lot of heat, so they need cooling, which usually means air conditioning which uses more electricity and water.<\/p>\n Data centres are not environmentally friendly. Even if all the electricity they use is coming from renewable sources, they contribute to global warming but putting heat into the atmosphere. They also need water which we have learned this year, is not an unlimited source, even in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n There is a way to mitigate some of this impact. Leeds operates a rather good scheme called PIPES. This takes heat from the Waste to Power plant (incinerator) in Cross Green, which deals with all our black bin waste, and takes it across the city to heat homes and public buildings.<\/p>\n By the way, district heating systems like PIPES are not new. I went to school in Pimlico in London. Next to the school was a council estate called Churchill Gardens, which was built after the second world war. The estate was heated by warm air pumped under the Thames from Battersea power station. Why the technology wasn\u2019t more widely adopted until the climate crisis struck I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Any way PIPES hasn\u2019t crossed the river yet, so we are not benefitting directly yet, but there are plans to develop the network in South Leeds by taking heat from the Verallia Glass Works, Lax & Shaw as was, in Hunslet.<\/p>\n You are possibly ahead of me here, but why don\u2019t we insist that the Microsoft data centre also provides heat for the PIPES network?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n While you\u2019re here, can we ask a favour?<\/strong><\/p>\n South Leeds Life is published by a not-for-profit social enterprise. We keep our costs as low as possible but we\u2019ve been hit by increases in the print costs for our monthly newspaper which have doubled in the last two years.<\/p>\n Could you help support local community news by making a one off donation, or even better taking out a supporters subscription?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/southleedslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Comment-logo-2.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>Microsoft\u2019s plans to build a data centre<\/strong><\/a> at Stourton will no doubt be good for the local economy creating both construction and operating jobs.<\/p>\n