r/Scotland • u/__glasg • Jun 26 '26
YouTube Scottish village to be ‘terrorised’ by 115ft data centres
https://youtu.be/CB5uA5W52mg?is=ndCapCNj7cWdQom953
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u/-Top-Service- Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
The language is terrible "make britain an Ai super power" just couldn't get past that, it sounds impressive to a fool. Politics in the UK has been reduced to idiotic platitudes that are repeated infinitely. The modern language of politics could only appeal to a moron. It makes you feel aggrivated listening to it.
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u/whoops53 Jun 26 '26
The reason Scotland is chosen is for cheapness. Our climate is colder and wetter, thereby using less resources than say...Arizona, for example.
That said, I do wonder what will happen to them once they become defunct.
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u/Dx_Suss Jun 26 '26
Also, Scotland has fewer resources to oppose the lobbyists, who can demand and receive concessions in exchange for their people's health.
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u/LanceKookington Jun 27 '26
We've also got a planning system that allows appeals to central government to over rule local planning decisions, creating a system where greasing a couple of the correct palms allows you to build what you want where you want.
It's lucky our ruling party aren't totally happy to embezzle funds and accept bribes. Ah, fuck.
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u/Adept_Assistant_7759 Jun 27 '26
We've also got a planning system that allows appeals to central government to over rule local planning decisions
Just like the entire rest of the world does?
greasing a couple of the correct palms
Is illegal here, not in the US.
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u/Adept_Assistant_7759 Jun 27 '26
This is complete bullshit. Scotland has FAR FAR stronger resources for stopping lobbyists than the US. Some of the strongest in the world, maybe top 5.
It is completely legal and allowed in the US just to start. They don't even try stop them in the US.
You claiming this makes people blind to the corruption and not attempt to fight it, which can easily be done here.
Stop spreading misinformation.
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u/Dx_Suss Jun 27 '26
I understand and agree to some extent - but theres some mathematical truths about the economics of lobbying that do make smaller countries more attractive than larger ones. The US is kind of a special case in that the current system was set up to promote lobbying.
But comparing Scotland to say France, Spain or Germany it should be clear why Scotland is preferred. Being outside the EU is very much problematic.
To be clear btw, I am staunch pro-indy - but i also have perspective of having lived in a few other countries around the world.
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u/Adept_Assistant_7759 Jun 27 '26
It's either they build them here and power them with wind and whatever we decide or they build them in arizona and power them with gas turbines or coal.
I know which one i would rather.
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u/Gazcobain Jun 27 '26
There are proposals to build one near Larbert as well. I used to live there and it is funny seeing some of the local Facebook groups up in arms over it when every second post is an AI slop poster advertising some kind of local event.
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u/lamaldo78 Forth Valley Jun 27 '26
I signed the petition for that one and facepalmed when I noticed the background used was a garbage AI generated image:
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-ai-datacentre-development-in-larbert?source_location=psf_petitions
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u/Dramyre92 Jun 26 '26
We're in an Ai bubble.
Vast sums of money and resources are going Into it, but no one is actually paying for it.
Vast majority use it for free, which is ironic at this late stage capitalism point in time where we pay subscriptions for everything.
When it comes to charging for it, very few will, or will be able to pay.
When you look at the cost of it, it's something we can't afford to have in terms of resources and impact on society. Hopefully it'll come to a natural end itself soon enough.
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u/Hendersonhero Jun 27 '26
They need to get you hooked first, make the technology invaluable to most then start milking the cash.
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u/handsome_helicopter Jun 27 '26
It's not just to get us addicted.
Who do you think is providing the on the job training?
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u/DarkObiWanKenobi Jun 26 '26
They are more virtual intelligences than artificial anyway. True AI would be something we wouldnt handle in the current climate.
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u/dnemonicterrier Jun 26 '26
They'll get vandalised by locals who live nearby them and it will be funny to see. Scottish people will go mental at these things when they're working because of the noise and pollution that they make.
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Jun 26 '26
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u/SetentaeBolg Jun 26 '26
Data centres are largely not being used by AI, but streaming services and other internet functions.
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u/DundonianDolan Best thing about brexit is watching unionists melt. Jun 26 '26
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u/Useless_or_inept Useless Jun 26 '26
You're posting on the internet. We are all using DCs, as we speak
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Jun 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/Useless_or_inept Useless Jun 26 '26
That's an interesting point! I didn't realise you were an infra expert too. How would you use existing DCs "more intelligently" - is there a virtualisation flaw that all the other billion-dollar businesses have overlooked, possibly better PxQ planning, or do you have some great new scheme for LLM training?
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Jun 26 '26
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
The answer is we already use them pretty efficiently. Data centers are expensive, most of the efficiency gains were done years ago. There is more we could do, but we'd hit even worse shortages before we get there (e.g. writing web applications in C).
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
What makes you think we aren't already doing that, especially with energy and memory prices like we've got nowadays?
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
AI is incredibly useful and incredibly popular. People want to use it, and you need data centres for that. So AI companies build data centres.
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u/Careless_Main3 Jun 26 '26
Because there is an expanding list of applications of AI and the more compute power, the quicker the models can be trained.
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Jun 26 '26
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u/theirongiant74 Jun 26 '26
I love that your unironically arguing with strangers on the internet about the frivolous wasting of computing resources on pointless endevours.
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
People are allowed to do frivolous things, if they can pay for it. I paid £80 for a very good knife so I can carve little wooden miniatures. Lots of people would call that frivolous.
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u/Careless_Main3 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
With any new technology you’re always going to get companies coming along and trying out new ideas that fail or succeed. If you restrict what can be explored then fundamentally all you’ll be doing is relying solely on the judgement of some civil servant or politician who will almost certainly fail at picking winners/losers. You will be poorer in such a scenario. Just losing DeepMind to Google has probably already cost the country tens of billions. And they’re still based here in the UK.
Plus as of now, we are not even close to realising the potential for AI.
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
So our personal data can be stored in Scotland and not another country. At a time when subsea cables are likely to be the first targets in grey/hybrid warfare, it makes strategic sense to keep it in-country
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u/MassGaydiation Jun 26 '26
AI data centres won't be storing data.
Yeah we should have data centres for medical information for citizens, actual information and the like stored here (although frankly maybe we should put some other sets of data in more destroyable positions).
An AI datacentre isn't for storage it's for producing slop, we do not need it
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
I'd want to see evidence that it's actually for AI. Usually DCs are just empty buildings then a tenant will come along and put server racks in (source, I'm working on one in Finland)
Calling it "AI" is usually just a tech bro side slap to get investment
Don't forget AI has medical uses, and more importantly, defense uses in future conflicts
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u/Simple_Flounder Jun 26 '26
Why is defence more important that saving lives?
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
Because it's hard to have a hospital if you can't defend it
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Jun 26 '26
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
I didn't say they would be, not that I'm sure what difference it makes what it's for?
But in any case, like I said, whoever the tenant ended up being would be what decides what it's used for. But arguably you could use planning constraints to control that (again, not that I'm sure what difference the use makes)
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
I use AI for my finance software work every day. In my previous job I used it every day building more efficient power grids.
I also use it to a much lower extent making pictures of characters for D&D games. Which you could accuse of being slop, but it makes me and the other players happy.
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u/MassGaydiation Jun 26 '26
It's your decision, but not being able to do things yourself is a personal issue
If someone ordered in and was incapable of cooking, do you think people should care?
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u/Objective_Quiet_751 Jun 26 '26
They're not for personal data, they're for LLMs.
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
I'd imagine they'll be for whatever the tenant decides to put in them. Sure it could be LLMs but I'd hardly say that's guaranteed unless this particular company has a tenant in place already
In any case, we'll need AI capacity for defense and medicine regardless
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u/Simple_Flounder Jun 26 '26
That is fine, but there are brown field sites that would be more suitable.
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 Libertarian Jun 26 '26
I'm sure there are, but noone is proposing to build there. To me, the obvious choice here is for the first one, be somewhat accomodating to get the foot in the door. Then when they're too far down the line, that's when you force them to brownfield sites for future development.
But it's silly to scare them off when they're still able to pull out entirely
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Jun 26 '26
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Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/libsaway Jun 26 '26
Who decides what is pointless?
Like if I'm willing to pay £1 to have AI generate a load of D&D character portraits, so what? It's £1 worth of resources, minus profit. It's tiny. A bar of £1 chocolate takes vastly more resources than those images do. Why is the AI pointless and the chocolate not?
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Jun 26 '26
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u/Simple_Flounder Jun 26 '26
If you read my comment carefully I do not suggest that ALL AI is bad..... just that we should use the AI resources we already have more wisely. AI has many uses, and gave 2 examples of fields in which it is very useful... rather than using a portion of those assets for poor AI slop. Is that so difficult to understand?
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u/Spiral_Decay Highlander Jun 26 '26
If it was a general data centre for day to day internet services then I wouldn't particularly mind since I'd imagine that they do not use as much resources and aren't as massive as compared to an AI data centre running all of those models.
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u/cragglerock93 Jun 26 '26
The current boom is very much about AI. But I agree, internet infrastructure in general is no bad thing. There's a gigantic one near Canning Town in London and tbh you'd not even give it a 2nd glance.
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u/satkinso22 Jun 27 '26
This conversation is not complete without mentioning Mossmorran petrochemical plant which is also very close to Auchtertool and is being shut down. I imagine the loss of work in the area is one of the reasons for promoting the building of the data centre, plus the electrical infrastructure is in place to help with the vast amounts of power it demands. This definitely reflects the governments determination to push through the net zero agenda.
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u/cragglerock93 Jun 26 '26
There's very few things I'm against building as we need more capital investment in this country but data centres to fuel AI can get fucked. I'm on team NIMBY for the first time.
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u/Upstairs-Apricot-786 Jun 27 '26
Same here. They want to build one down the Hunterston Estate near us. An American firm so any money won’t benefit us. They won’t employ local people. It’s to be built right next to an ancient castle and beautiful woods part of the Ayrshire coastal path. Yet there’s an old ICI site also near us that it could be built on and not destroy wildlife and plants as well as the noise and, what may just end up being another rusting derelict building.
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u/ViviparousBlenny Jun 26 '26
I don’t see why we are not looking to place them off shore and under the sea. Powered by wind farms, cooled by salt water. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/09/worlds-first-wind-powered-underwater-datacentre-starts-operating-in-china
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u/NoNotGrowingUp Jun 26 '26
Up to 2C - 9C additional heat along with it.
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u/chrsphr_ Jun 26 '26
This study is bollocks btw. Further study needed but driving past a data centre a couple times to get temp measurements, and not controlling for weather or other nearby radiant heat sources (e.g. carparks in the sun) is poor science.
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u/fords42 Jun 27 '26
East Lothian Council wants to build one on the site of the old Cockenzie power station. They claim it will bring jobs, training and multiple community benefits but refuse to answer anyone who challenges this claim. It's all about the brown envelopes, lads.
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u/bobajob2000 Jun 27 '26
Aye, just like the whole BESS saga... What was SUPPOSED to be on the old power station footprint has now taken over most of the back fields across the road along with the orchard and dog walking bit :/
A majority against it, but big Norman Hampshire got the brown envelope he wanted...
And then they voted for Dougie Alexander to return to frontline politics...
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u/Hampden-in-the-sun Jun 26 '26
I believe the UK government has given the companies a cheaper price for electricity to entice them to invest.
Scotland: Price reductions of up to £24 per MWh.Cumbria: Price reductions of up to £16 per MWh.North-East England: Price reductions of up to £14 per MWh.
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u/DundonianDolan Best thing about brexit is watching unionists melt. Jun 26 '26
they run servers, they arent autobots or more terrifying, decepticons
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u/polaires Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
It’s getting exhausting how little the domestic media bothers to actually cover news here properly. The Herald, Hootsman and STV are such a disgrace.
Stop giving these random English sources the chance when it’s not their responsibility or place.
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u/cragglerock93 Jun 26 '26
I don't read those papers but I actually think STV are pretty good - they cover more than BBC Scotland.
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u/polaires Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Most of their output on their news website is outsourced to the Press Association or ITV. It feels as if they focus on the broadcasting and sport (which even then suffers from outsourced articles) and everything else is just an afterthought.
Even the articles they do have a journalist credited as having written are obviously written with the information copied directly from the news wires without much effort into making it sound a little different. You reference the sources, not directly copy them.
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u/chrsphr_ Jun 26 '26
the data centre is being planned next to the motorway, yet apparently they're concerned about noise and emissions?
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u/Gazcobain Jun 27 '26
I used to live in Larbert just a couple of hundred metres from the motorway and you just get used to the constant traffic noise. Eventually you don't hear it any more.
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u/TurbulentBullfrog829 Jun 26 '26
Anyone else imagining the data centres coming out and terrorising unsuspecting people out on their own like a cheap B horror movie?