Sharp increase in data center applications in Sweden sparks debate

Applications for large data centers that want to connect to the electricity grid in Sweden have increased sharply in recent years.

The total capacity in Svenska kraftnät's application queue amounts to nearly 25,000 megawatts. Nearly 7,000 of these consist of data centers, which can be compared with industries where the corresponding figure is just over 10,000 megawatts.

Question marks around electricity prices and job opportunities

The concern about rising electricity prices is one explanation why data centers, for example, have become a controversial issue in the United States. The news site The Information has reported, among other things, that over 500 communities have said no to data centers. There is also concern about water shortages, as it is needed for cooling the data halls.

It is also unclear how many actual jobs the data centers create. According to the report Data Center Playbook from Business Sweden, data centers provide 0.5-1 direct and 1-3 indirect jobs per megawatt during operation.

In the same report, future scenarios are highlighted where the need for personnel may be unchanged or reduced by up to 50 to 90 percent, depending on the scenario.

Parties require strategy

SVT has previously reported on the Green Party demanding a national strategy for data centers where establishments are assessed based on climate and societal benefit.

Even the Social Democrats have put forward demands at the DI debate that a certain part of the computing capacity of the AI ​​data centers should be earmarked for Swedish actors such as universities and companies.