The Netherlands is one of the top data center markets in Europe, but new projects are met with protests by local comunities. In the last decade the Dutch governement never openly discussed their 'data center diplomacy' aimed at attracting hyperscale data centers to the Low Countries. The lack of a central strategy put local municipalities in charge of decisions that could seriously impact the entire country. This led to messy procedures, lawsuits, resulting in a series of critical newspaper articles. The avalanche of bad news more or less forced the Dutch government to impose a nine-month moratorium on the building of new (internatational) hyperscale data centres, while new planning regulations are worked out.
The Dutch story inspired the Norwegian Data Center Industry Association to give higher priority to start a dialogue with Norwegian society and the Norwegian government. Chairman of the Association Petter Tømmeraas will tell the story of the data center industry by - figuratively speaking - opening the doors of all data center facilities and invite all Norwegians to join the debate on the future of the data center industry.
Tømmeraas will highlight the success stories, but won't shy away from the challenging issues & dillema's this fast growing industry is facing. The Dutch cautionary tale shows that a scenario for sustainable data center growth can only succeed if it has the support of Norwegian society, backed by the active involvement of the Norwegian government.
Panelists
🔹Petter Tømmeraas - Chairman Norsk Datasenter Industri
🔹Christopher Frenning - Datacenter Strategy Lead Norway, Microsoft
🔹Gunn Karin Gjul - State Secretary Norwegian Government, Ministry of Local Government & Regional Development
🔹Atle Haga - Project Manager Data Centers Statkraft
