Inside the data centre boom nobody voted for
Power contracts, cooling water and a construction schedule that outruns every planning committee.
From the road it looks like a warehouse. Inside it consumes as much electricity as a small city and it is one of four planned within a thirty-kilometre radius.
The economics are compelling on paper: construction jobs, tax base, a marquee tenant. The operating headcount, once the building is live, is measured in dozens.
Utilities are the real bottleneck. Grid connection queues now stretch years, and the projects that win are the ones that arrive with their own generation plan.
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