Campaign organiser Andrew slammed plans to build a data centre that will take up twice as much land as the village
By Judy Cox
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Thursday 04 June 2026
Residents packed into a meeting in the village hall (Pic: @SimonForrest11 on X)
A village in Scotland is taking on the tech giants who want to build a massive 600 megawatt data centre for artificial intelligence (AI) on scenic farmland.
The data centre is projected to use as much as half of Scotland’s entire current energy consumption.
But villagers in Auchtertool, Fife, are determined to stand up to the tech giant behind the plans, the ILI Group.
The village hall was packed with around 250 people gathered to launch a campaign on Wednesday.
Andrew is one of the campaign organisers. He told Socialist Worker, “It feels like we’re a vassal state of the US tech companies. A small rural piece of Fife will be destroyed to line the pockets of despot billionaires on the other side the Atlantic.
“Fife council should be ashamed for considering this.”
Andrew says the campaigners are on a steep learning curve. “The ILI Group claims to be into green energy, but they are really a kind of property developer and they are very secretive about their plans,” he explained.
“They made the proposal a month ago. They promise to build this and that for the local community.
“But the land they want is 66 acres—that’s twice as big as the village. It’s hyperscale. And there will be giant coolers 35 feet high—we have no idea where water will come from to cool the servers.
“They say it will be renewable energy, but there will be immense strain on the grid, and the water source has not recovered from last year’s drought.
“The company says it will be collected from rainfall, but we have no clear idea how.
“There has been no environmental impact survey into the effect on the areas biodiversity. There is a burn here that feeds a protected wildlife area.
“We have noticed that council reports about the area have been redacted from the internet.
“The company is planning to build 13 data centres across Scotland. We have to stop it now and link up with those fighting in other areas. That is solidarity and community.”
Many of the people at the meeting had fought against the Mossmorran ethylene chemical plant built 40 years ago.
“Lots of women at the meeting had been there blocking the gates,” said Andrew. “We are going to protest and if they refuse to listen, we will be taking direct action.
“We are going to show people the environmental destruction that massive data centres bring, how they drain resources, and won’t create jobs—they will just line pockets of billionaires in Silicon Valley.
“ILI have only promised 50 local jobs. This is the same as Mossmorran, which promised thousands of jobs in a deprived old mining area.
“They promised the community would be enriched by new industries, but they just destroyed and poisoned our landscape.
“We want to stop them here and everywhere.”
