MORE than 70,000 people have signed petitions against plans for eight new data centres in Scotland.

Campaigners have hailed “huge public support” behind their calls for the Scottish government to pause the developments until environmental impact assessments are carried out.

In a letter to First Minister John Swinney, they said that the Scottish government must “start distinguishing between different types of data centres and identify whether they will bring benefits to Scotland.”

They hailed the supercomputer being built at Edinburgh University as an example of “where publicly funded data centres are bringing huge benefits in the case of ground-breaking research, including in the medical field.”

But with a number of proposed hyperscale data centres planned by private companies at different sites in Scotland, they warned that such developments could be “10-15 times bigger than these huge supercomputers” and would “be run by the US tech giants.”

Fourteen community groups have announced plans for a rally against the plans outside the Scottish Parliament as MSPs prepare to return to Holyrood after the summer recess.

They are also calling for an independent assessment of the need for hyperscale AI data centres in Scotland, looking at the impact these have on communities, land, water, the power grid and Scotland’s climate commitments.

Kat Jones, director of Action to Protect Rural Scotland, a countryside charity campaigning against hyperscale data centres, said: “It is clear that a moratorium on hyperscale AI data centres has huge public support across Scotland, and across all political parties.

“When the Parliament starts up again next week, all eyes will be on what the First Minister has to say about it.”

Campaigner Victoria Plutshack said that the “strength of feeling in the Edinburgh community can’t be oversold.”

It comes after public finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad announced recently that environmental impact assessments would be required for two proposed data centres in Auchtertool in Fife and Wester Hermiston in Edinburgh.

She said: “I have directed that planning authorities be required to notify ministers of new data centre applications exceeding 50 megawatts within seven days to help monitor their implications for wider infrastructure.”