The cloud is located in a Danish field – and it eats electricity

Assistant Professor James Maguire was interviewed for Ingeniøren about the relationship between data centres, energy transitions, and transparency.

The article investigates the current plans of Apple, Google, Facebook & Co to build (further) data centres in Denmark.

As large energy consumers these data centres are having an increasing effect on the politics of renewable energy and climate change in Denmark. At the same time, a lack of transparency in how Big-Tech conducts its affairs continues to be of growing concern. “It is almost impossible to get information from these corporations, unless it has a clear strategic or market value for them”, Maguire argues. There has been some indication that the secrecy that characterizes the working practices of Big-Tech have slowly begun to seep into working processes at various municipalities.

Embedding forms of concealment, silence, and elision within municipal practices could become a serious problem.

While such practices clearly lack public transparency, they do have positive effects on the profit margins and stock prices of these corporations, Maguire points out.

Read the article (in Danish) here.

Posted in News.