\n The report sets out how companies are at risk of pouring money into infrastructure which may become \u201cstranded\u201d if market conditions turn sour.\n<\/p>\n
\n It said: \u201cThe tech sector\u2019s ballooning growth belies its fragility; a downward correction within the next few years is plausible.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Growth in AI over the past few years has been immense and the sector has accounted for virtually all US economic growth in the first half of 2025, according to Harvard economist Jason Furman.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n \n Plans for AI data centres are contentious because while they use huge amounts of electricity and water, councils do not require developers to produce environmental impact assessments<\/a>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n Apatura, which has proposals for 10 AI data centres in Scotland, though none of which have formally been submitted for planning permission, has previously told The National that concerns about both energy and water use are overblown<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n However, the Centre for Public Enterprise report \u201cBubble or Nothing\u201d<\/a> has reignited the debate, with campaigners saying it makes the case that the powers that be should take a more sceptical view of the promised economic benefits<\/a> of the sector.\n<\/p>\n \n Kat Jones, director of the Action to Protect Rural Scotland pressure group, told the Sunday National: \u201cScotland is accelerating headlong into becoming collateral damage in this AI bubble as we see data centres queuing up to come to Scotland.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIf we allow this to happen, it will be at the expense of the cost of living, as data centres create negligible permanent jobs and use mind-boggling amounts of energy, driving up electricity prices. For example, there is a moratorium on new housing developments in several London boroughs where data centres are using so much energy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n More than 20 data centres operate in the Isle of Dogs in east London, where the local council has warned that there was \u201csevere\u201d risk that housebuilding could not proceed for \u201cpotentially 10 plus years due to lack of available electricity supply\u201d, London Spy reported in June<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n \n Jones added: \u201cWe can only hope that this bubble collapses before the data centres that are planned in Scotland get built.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is hard to understand why the Scottish Government is so keen to welcome data centres into Scotland when they use inconceivably large amounts of energy, and water, are extremely noisy, drive up energy prices, and operate on a skeleton staff when in operation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Scottish Greens<\/a> MSP Ariane Burgess added that the growth of the digital economy \u2013 which has recently made AI computer chip manufacturer Nvidia the most valuable company in history \u2013 was piling pressure on the environment.\n<\/p>\n \n She added: \u201cI am concerned that the lack of planning guidance and less than robust environmental assessments for these data centres are committing to developments that totally undermine Scotland\u2019s climate targets while benefitting big, multi-national businesses.\n<\/p>\nA Wall Street sign outside the New York Stock Exchange\n<\/p>\n
Isle of Dogs, London (Image: lewishamdreamer\/Flickr)\n<\/p>\n