Call for Coleraine data centre protest

Political party, People Before Profit is calling the Coleraine public onto the streets in protest over data centres.

The planned demonstration has been prompted by a global tech company’s proposed expansion of the town’s data centre on the Portstewart Road.

Timed to coincide with a “European day of action on data centres” organisers say they want to take a firm stand against “energy vampires.”

In September the Chronicle exclusively reported how Swiss-based tech firm Eyrce has acquired Coleraine's data centre as part a multi-million pound investment in AI.

And the firm has plans to expand operations across acres of nearby vacant land.

News of the deal was disclosed by the council's chief economic development officer at a Cloonavin committee meeting.

While the buyer was described only as “a software development company” its understood Eryce plans to install the hardware required to train, deploy, and run artificial intelligence systems.

Elected members were told of the deal because the data centre's owners are tenants at the Causeway Coast and Glens Council's Atlantic Link Enterprise Campus.

People Before Profit says there has already been local opposition to the expansion in the form of an online petition.

“We stand with local residents who are uninterested in local renewable energy being used to power AI, when it could be used to power new homes, or to lower electricity costs for consumers,” said a spokesperson.

“Our local area, and NI as a whole, has already suffered greatly from the toxic algae crisis at Lough Neagh. The last thing our environment needs is another threat like data centres.

“AI has been shown to lower the critical thinking of its users, and has been linked to new cases of ‘AI Psychosis’.

“AI has also been responsible for several large data breaches and cyber-attacks in recent years. AI’s real issues outweigh its promised benefits”.

People Before Profit is calling for people to demonstrate outside the council’s Portstewart Road HQ - just a stone’s throw from the data centre.

News of the expansion has been welcomed by elected representatives because the plans could result in the council finally realising significant financial benefits from a project that was described in 2023 as “a white elephant”

The data centre remains the Enterprise Campus’s only tenant yet the land continues to be held on a long term lease from Ulster University that cost Causeway Coast and Glens Council a reputed £1m.

It's understood the council spent a further £1.5m on enabling works like access roads, power supply and telecoms provision.

While an expansion would be unlikely to create significant numbers of jobs, the council could be in line for a cash windfall.

However, People before Profit firmly rejected assertions by local councillors that this project is a “vote of confidence” in the area.

Instead, the party highlighted the fact that many data centres are built in low income or economically deprived areas to enable “the myth of development”

The party’s spokesperson added: “People Before Profit intends to organise against any expansion of the centre, at a time when our planet and many of our people are in crisis.

“We cannot afford to be giving grace to energy vampires such as data centres, we must take a firm position against corporate greed for computing power to train AI models.

“To that end, we are calling on all local residents, and those opposed to the theft of our

resources by data centres, to join a demonstration planned to coincide with an international

European day of action on data centres, on November 7, at 3pm outside the Causeway

Coast & Glens council offices on Portstewart Rd. in Coleraine.

Data centres are simply facilities housing electronic equipment used to process, store and transmit digital information

The development of AI has prompted massive boom in their construction.

While they are seen as a crucial components in the AI revolution, their rapid expansion has raised environmental concerns - particularly around energy consumption.

On its website, Eryce describes itself as “a technology group that has been designing, running and building software and infrastructure since 2010”.

At its core is “Infrastructure, AI inference and compute”, according to the firm'.