Seeing The Scale Of A Hyper-Scale Data Centre in My Own Backyard

I thought this was interesting. Here are some before and after (mock up) images of the proposed AI hyper-scale data centre on the site of the old Ford plant in Bridgend. The images came from the planning application for the site, a couple of years ago. Even though I've been following news about hyper-scale data centres for some time, it's still a surprise to see the size when placed in a landscape I know very well 😬

I believe there a five of these proposed centres or campuses, across Wales (four in the south and one in the north), which according to a Senedd Research paper, consume between 148 and 600MW of energy each and huge amounts of water to cool the power hungry chips. For comparison,100 MW is comparable to the overall electricity consumption footprint of a mid-sized city (such as a population base of 150,000 to 200,000 people). A single 100MW hyper-scale facility can also consume 2.5 billion litres of water annually, drawing directly from drinking supplies, according to a 2025 report by the UK Government Digital Sustainability Alliance (GDSA). This volume is equivalent to the daily water needs of approximately 80,000 people.

If you want to know more about this, have a look at that Senedd Research webpage which was published a couple of days ago. Some really interesting information about AI data centres and links on there 

As recommended by Estyn, there is an urgent need for critical AI literacy for our learners, to help them to become ethically and informed users of technology. Understanding the impact that generative AI is already having on the environment, society and intelligence.

"Just because we can, does that mean we should?"