What do data centers bring to Marseille?

• Marseille is ranked 9th in the world for internet hubs.

• A substantial and energy-intensive infrastructure, with few direct benefits for the city.

• How could this digital environment contribute to the community, and should its appetite be regulated?

The equivalent of 1,000 times the integral of

(5 seasons).

This is, according to

, the amount of data created every second on the Internet.

Either 29,000 gigabytes, or 100 computers with a storage capacity of 300 gigabytes (standard configuration for laptops).

So much data that must be stored somewhere: this is the role of data centers.

They must also be able to circulate from one computer to another, from one continent to another, using cables.

Worlds of virtual appearances, the internets are nonetheless built on physical infrastructures.

Marseille, gateway to the web

And in this world-wide infrastructure, Marseille, the entry (and exit) gateway to 14 submarine cables, positioned in 9th place worldwide, is a pillar.

"The nineteenth century was the century of stations and ports, the twentieth that of airports and highways, the twenty-first is that of data centers and submarine cables", summarizes Sami Slim, deputy director of Telehouse France.

"And those who own these routes have global influence, because that's where digital commerce takes place," adds Sami Slim, whose company, originally Japanese, has just built an 8,000 m² data center. in Marseille, the fourth in the city, counting the three built by Interxion, its American competitor.

"Financing the energy transition"

We can congratulate ourselves on Marseille's attractiveness for this 21st century economy and wonder about its consequences and benefits for the community. "Their indirect impact is quite significant and they provide few jobs," said Sébastien Barles, deputy mayor of Marseille in charge of energy transition. “Data centers and internet architecture put local pressure on infrastructure, especially the electricity network, and release heat. We should imagine a real compensation mechanism, ”he wishes. A reflection currently at work within the environmental group of the municipal majority, but also at EELV. The idea put forward for the moment is that of a kind of Tobin * tax applied to the entry and exit doors of digital flows."I do not know if this is the right solution", relativizes Sébastien Barles, "but the idea is to be able to finance the energy transition".

Because data centers and digital architecture, without which no “dematerialization” is possible, are energy intensive.

The French government estimates the share of digital equipment in the country's electricity consumption at 12%, including 3% for data centers alone.

A share set to grow.

"Seriously pose the question of uses"

"The rate of growth in data consumption is around 50% per year," suggests Hugues Ferreboeuf, specialist in digital and energy transition issues for the think tank The Shift Project. Polytechnic, mining engineer, and former executive officer of France Telecom Orange, he preaches "for a strong regulatory action". “The digital business model favors offers or behaviors that are not aligned with carbon footprint objectives”. And to advance avenues, such as the prohibition of unlimited packages or the surcharge above a certain level of consumption. "A large capacity of data centers is used for things far from essential", continues Hugues Ferreboeuf. The share of online videos, for example,represents 80% of network growth and 65% of current traffic, specifies the telecom engineer. "We must seriously ask ourselves the question of the place we give to these uses".

Pointed out, data hosting companies plead the good environmental virtue and the promise of carbon neutrality. "100% of our energy is of renewable origin", agrees Sami Slim, who specifies "to study solutions to reinject the heat released in the heating of housing, as we are already doing in Paris". The idea is not to criticize the efforts of such companies but to situate them in the climate emergency that is ours, and to question their contributions to communities. Telehouse, via its French partner The jaguar network, has opened a code school in Marseille and aims to create a training center by 2022, able to train the workforce the company needs. "It is estimated that we will create 100 to 200 direct jobs in Marseille",exposes Sami Slim for whom an excessively strong regulation, taxes or other, would lead the industrialists only to consider other points of fall. A low, or even insufficient, benefit for the community, believe the elected environmentalists who would like to see them contribute more.

"We realize that we will not be able to fight climate change without sobriety, and without it being the fault of the data centers", considers for his part Hugues Ferreboeuf.

"But without strong regulation, there is no reason to think that everything will be better, and we no longer have the time to take the risk," he concludes.

* Tobin tax: From the name of James Tobin, Nobel laureate in economics in 1981, who suggested a tax on international monetary transactions, which never saw the light of day.

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• Tobin tax

• Energetic transition

• Internet

• Digital

• Economy

• Data

• Planet