questions and concerns<\/a> about power supplies, noise pollution and whether the wider community had been adequately consulted \u2013 but Datagrid did not attend.<\/p>\nBlomfield said: “We\u2019ve reached out in good faith and it’s a shame but they might come to the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The centre is expected to open in 2028.<\/p>\n
Datagrid said construction will create 1200 jobs but when the centre is fully open, only 80 staff will be needed.<\/p>\n
Company addresses water, power concerns<\/p>\n
1News requested an interview with Datagrid. The company said in a statement it had all the required approvals before consent was granted.<\/p>\n
Datagrid addressed concern over the use of water for the facility, saying: \u201cThere will be no groundwater draw whatsoever. Southland\u2019s naturally crisp 9-10\u00b0C average annual temperature allows the facility to rely entirely on free cooling from ambient outside air.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Datagrid project promises to bring new jobs, with efficient technologies to combat concerns around water and electricity use. Some locals aren’t so sure. (Source: Q and A)<\/p>\n
Datagrid also said the centre would not be a burden on the electricity network. \u201cThe project actively unlocks new, cheap renewable energy. This influx of clean energy increases total national supply, supporting lower long-term wholesale power costs for everyday Kiwis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Mercury also announced it bought a 12% stake in Datagrid for $53 million. Datagrid and Mercury also signed a 140MW long-term power purchase agreement in March.<\/p>\n
But some critics are unconvinced that consumers will benefit.<\/p>\n
Simplicity managing director Sam Stubbs told 1News: \u201cWhat we have seen with data centres now, and there’s a lot of evidence, is that they employ very few people, they pay very low taxes, they’re masters at paying the lowest possible taxes but they consume a huge amount of power and the last thing New Zealanders need right now is higher power bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Southland Mayor Rob Scott said the proposal had followed the Resource Management Act process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technology at the moment with AI and everything else is moving in a pace that the world can’t actually keep up with.<\/p>\n
And I think we’re getting a consequence of that now. So we’re all trying to work within the rules and the regulations that we’ve got, and sometimes, they need to be challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside the data centre, Datagrid is also developing a high-fibre cable linking Invercargill with Australia, called the Tasman Ring Network.<\/p>\n
The Datagrid project promises to bring new jobs, with efficient technologies to combat concerns around water and electricity use. Some locals aren’t so sure. (Source: Q and A)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opponents of a new $3.5 billion hyperscale AI factory in Southland are calling on the developers Datagrid to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,273,111,139,69,15488,145],"class_list":["post-540190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-southland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}