// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
MSPs asked to pause Scotland's AI data centre boom
Activists protested against data centres in their local area outside the Scottish Parliament earlier this month
Scotland has a new boom industry, at least if planning applications are taken at face value.
The term "hyperscale data centre", rarely heard a few years ago, is now dividing opinion across the country as a rush of applications are made to build them.
A debate at Holyrood later, led by the Scottish Greens, will call for planning applications to be put on hold until promised new national guidelines are in force, with an emphasis on energy demand and the environment.
The growth of AI is happening at lightning pace, so what are the advantages and disadvantages of Scotland being at the forefront?
The single biggest reason why developers are interested in Scotland is because it allows them to say that their energy-hungry facility is being powered by green electricity.
Scotland has an abundance of wind and much of the energy from it is currently wasted because the transmission infrastructure isn't large enough to carry it from where it is generated to the consumers.
Installing more, bigger pylons to ship the electricity to England, where the bulk of the UK's population is, or bring the largest consumers of that electricity closer to the generators.
Research by BBC Scotland News has identified, as of 24 June, at least 23 projects which are in the planning process, though most experts believe many of those are speculative applications and will never be built.
But that doesn't allay the fears of people living in communities where potential sites have been identified because the faceless, warehouse-like buildings housing the servers can cover a massive footprint.