Bosquel data center project residents concerns public meeting, Digi Mart USA News (Bosquel, Somme, France): A stormy public meeting was held on November 2 in Bosquel, a small town in southern Somme, which is expected to host an industrial zone with a data center. Residents and associative activists shared their concerns about the future site’s nuisances and about artificial intelligence in general.
The public information meeting was meant to answer questions from local residents worried about a data center covering about 60 hectares near their village. One resident said that wherever data centers exist around the world, nearby residents have problems.
Dairy producer Jean-Pierre Mascré, who operates 150 meters from the site, is also concerned. He said heat, noise and brightness could disturb his cows and reduce his milk production by 15 to 20 percent.
He has already been expropriated of 9 of his 47 hectares of land for the future industrial zone, and the Somme Sud-Ouest community of municipalities (CC2SO) is now asking for 5 more hectares.
Mascré said that with this planning, his farm is being sacrificed, and he asked for the site to be moved as far as possible from the village. He said he would file an objection and has already submitted complaints to the town hall.
The project developers invited residents to the village hall at 6 p.m. Alex Cresswell, public affairs director of Japanese investor SoftBank, which co-finances the site with the Marseille start-up Sesterce, described the meeting as the start of a dialogue.
A public consultation will last seven weeks, followed by a building permit application.
SoftBank and Sesterce hope to build around the calculator an ecosystem of companies and researchers focused on AI in the area, which they describe as being at the center of Europe and benefiting from industrial culture and engineering talent.
Questions from nearby residents and Amiens associations were numerous, and tempers sometimes rose between supporters and opponents as well as against the meeting’s organization. One woman said residents were not asked for their opinion, and a translator who said she lost her job because of artificial intelligence criticized the benefits flowing to investors.
Damien Patriarch, head of an architecture and engineering firm of about 500 people based in Savoie, said the firm plays a technical and architectural role and supports SoftBank and Sesterce in conducting studies intended to address residents’ concerns with scientific answers. He said the firm aims to minimize the project’s environmental impact and noted the site’s proximity to the village, adding that two electrical pylons carrying 400-kilovolt lines cross the land, making it nearly ideal for a project of this scale.
Stéphanie Collonvillé, a resident of neighboring Monsures, is skeptical of the 450 job promises linked to the site, which would be associated with AI research. She said the circular building could give the impression of a service building, but the site mainly consists of massive and numerous computing pods, and that no research has yet been confirmed.
She also questioned using farmland for generative AI during a period of climate change.
Patriarch said the subject of AI and supercomputers is stirring public debate, which he considers normal given the high stakes. He said France must take its share, guarantee its sovereignty and remain in control rather than suffer what others have decided.
