Apple to cancel data center in Ireland after environmental complaints postponement

Apple has stopped building a planned data center in Ireland after complaints about environmental impact, among other things, led to serious construction delays. This would force the company to ‘make other plans’.

The data center should have been built at Derrydonnell Woods, near the Irish Athenry. Apple announced in 2015 that it wanted to build this, along with a new data center in Denmark. According to Apple, these would be very green data centers, including the reuse of residual heat. The company has expressed disappointment to the Independent.

A forest had to make way for it, but Apple promised to provide new plantings. Two people in particular objected and were able to delay the procedure for permits and the start of construction. Among other things, the complainants pointed to the load that the data center would put on the Irish power grid. In addition, there would be no plans regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

It was to become one of the largest data centers in Europe, which Apple would use for services such as Apple Music, iCloud, the App Store, Messages, Maps and Siri. It is not known which alternative Apple has for the data center.