CAMPAIGNERS may be welcoming MSPs' decision to pause AI data centre development until national planning guidance can be implemented, but this story is far from over.
MSPs rejected the Scottish Greens' bid to implement a full moratorium on the projects, instead rallying around a Labour amendment stating that no further consent can be given until Scotland-wide guidance is developed by the Government. New rules requiring environmental impact assessments for each development have also been brought in, though it is pretty wild that it has taken so long to get to that stage.
Yes, the SNP will be breathing a sigh of relief that the pressure has eased temporarily. They can go into next month's party conference avoiding any real scrutiny over their position, comfortable in the knowledge that difficult questions on the 24 proposed data centres can be waved away with insistence that guidance is being prepared.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Greens will be pleased that they got this important issue onto the Parliament's agenda, and effected some change via their relentless campaigning – even if the outcome isn't quite as solid as they'd have liked. It has, at least, provided significant media coverage of a major environmental issue, allowing the party to communicate with their base while also appealing to potential new supporters who harbour concerns over data centre development.
Labour will also be happy tonight. It was their amendment that pushed the Scottish Government into at least an effective pause, providing them with a convenient middle ground that aims to appease both developers and local communities. It's a big win for a party badly needing one in Scotland.
But the important thing to remember here is that it's all temporary. It's the political equivalent of kicking the can down the road. Hannah Mary-Goodlad (below) will work with her team on planning guidelines, but what will they say? The Scottish Government envisages a future where both the big companies proposing these projects and the campaigners rallying against them are all satisfied. This is, frankly, a naïve and impossible task. Civil servants can draw up planning guidelines all they want, but they can't reduce the noise emitted from the data centres, prevent the documented localised warming, or transform the grid to eliminate fears about intensive energy use with a click of their fingers.
These planning guidelines have a lot to live up to. AI data centres are incredibly unpopular. The SNP's messy response to that has created a new divide between them and their voters. In a YouGov poll from May (albeit a subsample from a UK-wide survey), 48% of Scots strongly or somewhat opposed the idea of having a data centre in their area. Meanwhile just 22% somewhat or strongly supported that. Over in the US, where the negative impact of data centres on local agricultural land, energy use and water supplies is well documented, a poll from Gallup found having a data centre in your area would be more unpopular than a nuclear power station. Nearly three-quarters opposed the idea.
Today's debate focused almost exclusively on the planning and development area of the data centres, but there were hints, including from SNP depute leader Keith Brown, about the wider impact of AI. Who wants to host the digital infrastructure of a technology that we are told will take our jobs and potentially kill us all with a decade? Of course, it can be hard to tell the difference between genuine concerns about the potential risks this tech poses and what Cory Doctorow calls "crita-hype" – critical scaremongering that actually serves the purpose of inflating AI firms' valuations – but none of this helps sell the idea of AI to the public.
On a less existential but still important level, AI-generated slop is a visual assault on the senses in all corners of everyday life from restaurants to public services. It is increasingly off-putting to the public, not to mention the creators whose art styles it has stolen in order to be able to produce anything in the first place. Politicians are not engaging with that part of the resistance to this tech.
Hannah Mary-Goodlad's comments during the debate were revealing about where the SNP are positioning themselves. She did not address environmental fears in any depth. Instead, she presented a version of AI which few will recognise, while bigging up the importance of investment like this in Scotland.
"We do not agree that there should be a moratorium – that is not necessary, it's not appropriate and it would send the wrong message to anyone looking to invest in Scotland," she told MSPs.
"We cannot prevent planning applications from being lodged nor should we – and applications have a right to receive a timely decision.
"It's important not to lose sight of why these developments are being proposed. The world economy is becoming ever more dependent on digital infrastructure. Data centres support cloud computing, research, advanced manufacturing, financial services and delivery of public services."
This is true, but there are major differences between data centres and the hyperscale AI data centres we are talking about in this debate – not least the obscene energy demands of the latter.
The SNP's position on this issue looks remarkably similar to Reform's, or the Tories'. They all focus on the investment and growth opportunities presented by AI data centres, but fail to note that they actually bring very few jobs or benefits to the areas they are built in. They all offer pleasantries about community engagement and planning frameworks. None seem comfortable engaging on the realities of why communities are so angry right now.
Of course the public want to see investment in Scotland. The question is, at what cost? It is indeed welcome to see a pause here – but the fight will only reignite once the planning guidance emerges. In the long term, too, the SNP face a much larger political fight if they fail to properly engage with the concerns of voters on AI data centres. If today's rhetoric is anything to go by, the Greens will rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of poaching a good number of supporters from John Swinney's party at the next elections.
