Why Irish data centre boom is complicating climate efforts

Surge in processing industry will increase Ireland's already too high carbon emissions

Inside Digital Realty's Dublin data centre, racks of shiny black servers throb and whirr as unseen fans cool machines that steadily process unending data.

It operates 24 hours a day from the business park, sited on a former orchard, and the data joins a digital torrent in an underground fibre ring network that sweeps around the Irish capital and connects to undersea cables - the physical backbones of the digital world.