Industry urges Denmark to build more data centres despite protests
Wednesday 28th October 2026 on 16:45 in
Denmark
Denmark needs more data centres as demand for computing capacity grows, the industry says, even as local protests lead to projects being paused or abandoned, DR reports.
“We have no choice,” said Henrik Hansen, director of the industry association Datacenter Industrien. But construction must be controlled and planned in close dialogue with affected groups, he said.
Plans for data centres have faced growing opposition in several parts of the country. Near Tinghøj, north of Varde, residents put up For Sale signs outside their homes this summer to protest against a planned Microsoft data centre. The municipality has recently put the project on hold.
Hansen said the industry had noticed increased attention and accepted that it had a responsibility to explain what happens inside data centres and ensure local residents see benefits from nearby facilities. “They are not built just for fun,” he said. “They are built because there is a huge need for computing power, including in Denmark.”
The government is working on a data centre strategy. It is expected to assess the need for new facilities, including to support the use of artificial intelligence, consider who should build them and examine how they can be placed to benefit the energy grid and use renewable power.
Andreas Holbak Espersen, digital industry director at Dansk Industri, said Danish companies and public authorities all depend to some extent on digital services. He said concerns about electricity use, noise and environmental effects were legitimate, but added that more capacity would be needed as data and IT systems require storage.
Denmark can either expand capacity at home and retain Danish data centres under Danish sovereignty, Espersen said, or become more dependent on other countries.
The industry association estimates there are about 55 data centres in Denmark, while other counts are higher. The engineering publication Ingeniøren recently mapped 29 more that are planned. A Facebook data centre in Odense is described in the article as carbon-neutral, with associated renewable energy facilities, and as supplying district heating to thousands of residents. The article notes that this is not always the case.