For the second time in a week, Hyperscale Data Centres featured in First Minister’s Questions and committed to providing guidance to local authority planners on AI data centres.
This story was covered in:
- The Herald: John Swinney considers hyperscale AI data centre guidance
- Edinburgh Evening News: Edinburgh MP Scott Arthur urges speedy guidance on data centres and says community voice is vital
- The Planner: Scottish Government considers planning guidance for hyperscale data centres
John Swinney was questioned by Gillian Mackay, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, about guidance for local authorities taking decisions on hyperscale AI data centres. He talked about the impacts from the ‘proliferation of applications for AI data centres’
John Swinney pledged to deliver guidance on AI data center decision making for local authorities as a priority.
The First Minister said:
“I’ve been reflecting on the exchanges last week and looked further at this issue, and I’m giving active consideration to whether the Scottish Government should provide planning guidance to balance the rapid expansion of hyperscale data centres with national energy and climate goals, which are vital to our future prosperity,”
When asked for a time line he said: “I appreciate the urgency of this question because there are a number of applications that are now being considered by planning authorities.
“And my view is that with the concerns being expressed by planning authorities, the government has to be responsive to that.”
Swinney added that there is a “careful balance that has to be struck between the extent and specificity of national guidance and the discretion available for local decision making”.
“Now, if the balance of that is not correct in this issue, then obviously that has to be examined by the government, but I give a commitment to Gillian Mackay that that will be undertaken as a matter of priority by the government and obviously planning authorities will hear what I’m saying in Parliament today and will be able to reflect on my comments.”
Listen to the exchange here.
This was covered in
The National Scottish government to consider planning guidance for AI data centers
The Herald First Minister considers new rules for ‘hungry’ AI data centres
The National Campaigner welcomes First Minister’s new position on Scotland’s AI data centres
Our Press statement:
Kat Jones of APRS said:
“We have been calling for clarity on Scottish government policy around ‘green data centres’ since December so it is encouraging to hear that the First minister will be doing this as a matter of priority.
“However there are active planning applications for ‘green data centres’ in two councils, Falkirk and Fife, and one being appealed for Edinburgh so we need this commitment to be accompanied by an urgent pause on all applications for hyperscale data centres while this is carried out.
“On the issue of what a ‘green data centre’ is, the Government’s own analysis of the greenhouse emissions of their ‘green data centre’ policy does not include hyperscale AI data centres.
” This is not a surprise as when our National Planning Framework was being written, Chat GPT had not launched and hyperscale AI data centres simply didn’t exist. One can only conclude that the ‘green data centres’ mentioned in Scotland’s planning framework do not include hyperscale AI data centres, and only include the smaller, much less energy intensive, data centres used for business, data storage, research and cloud use.”