Can Cyprus Build an AI Data Centre?

Can Cyprus Build an AI Data Centre?

In September 2024, UK government announced a £10bn investment in a new AI data centre. This will be one of Europe’s biggest AI data centres and it will create 4000 jobs. More details can be found in the BBC article. 

I was thinking whether is possible to have such an investment in Cyprus? Let’s say the money were found could it be done? Let’s start with what is needed for such data centre. 

First of all such data centre will require lots of space. The UK AI data centre will be Northumberland Energy Park, an area of 35 hectares. In contrast, the largest photovoltaic plant in Cyprus spans 82 hectares of state land, so we can safely assume that there is enough space. 

So We have found the money and the place. But who is going to build it? The UK AI data centre will require 1200 roles dedicated to the construction (source). In 2021, Cyprus had around 35 thousands employees in the construction industry (Statista, 2021). Occupying around 3.5% of the employees is a large percentage but not impossible 

So we have now have the money, the place and secured the labour force required. We need people working in the data centre. The UK AI data centre will create around 2800 jobs. Do we have 2800 highly ICT experts to support such jobs in Cyprus? According to the latest Cyprus Statistics data, in the last decade the ICT sector marked an average growth rate of 15%, outperforming all other sectors of the economy. Furthermore, Cyprus has more than 40 public and private higher education institutions which can be utilised to train people in Ai. A data centre will require different skills such as data management, network administrators, engineers and telecommunications. 

So now we have the money, the place, the labour force required. All we need now is energy to power up the data centre which will be power hungry. The Electric Power Research Institute forecasts that by 2030 American data centres will be consuming 9% of all US energy. A large-scale data centre can require a supply of 100 megawatts per day or 36,500 MW per year, or about the energy required by a town of 16,400 homes. Power in Cyprus is still primarly generated by three fuel oil-burning stations. 

However, the percentage of rewenable energy generation has increased from 1.39% 2010 to 16.98% in 2022. During summer, the highest demand of all time in the Cyprus electricity system was 1290 MW, of which 42% was covered by renewable energy sources (July-24, CyprusMail) so new parks will be required. One of the largest photovoltaic parks in Cyprus generates 5000MWh per year which means Cyprus will need another 9 of these to cover the needs of the AI data centre.