Academic study criticises government data centre report as 'flawed'

A new academic paper claims a government report on Irish data centres used flawed methodology and exaggerated the facilities' economic benefits.

The study argues that arguments presented by successive governments and the industry in favour of data centres do not stand up to empirical scrutiny and are designed to inflate their economic value. The researchers suggest that if the resources directed towards expanding data centres had been deployed elsewhere, nearly 50,000 homes could have been built, or tens of thousands of jobs created in the healthcare, education, or social sectors.

The criticised government report, which cost the Department of Enterprise over €100,000 to produce, claimed that data centres underpin 876,000 jobs—equivalent to nearly one-third of Ireland's total employment. However, the report also acknowledged that only 3,300 people are directly employed by these facilities.

The academic paper claims the 876,000 figure relies on a spurious methodology. This calculation was based on surveying 30 private firms across six sectors to determine the percentage of jobs classified as digitally dependent.