然而，德国发现其人工智能发展计划与自身的气候保护承诺之间存在矛盾。欧盟成员国已承诺在十年内将温室气体排放量减少55%。但那些旨在实现这一目标的政策，反而阻碍了数据中心建设的热情。
However, Germany has found that its AI ambitions are butting up against its climate commitments. EU member states have committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by the end of the decade. But policies meant to help meet that target are interfering with attempts to trigger a data center building frenzy.
作为其更广泛气候保护计划的一部分，德国前政府于2023年通过了《能源效率法》，该法律要求所有新建的数据中心必须回收其计算机设备产生的废热，并尽可能将其用于当地的市政供暖系统。当时担任德国经济事务与能源部高级官员的帕特里克·格拉伊亨（Patrick Graichen）表示，这似乎是理所当然的措施；不过他后来因受到腐败指控而辞职。
As part of its broader climate commitments, the previous German administration voted through the Energy Efficiency Act in 2023. Among other things, it required all new data centers to recycle a portion of the waste heat generated by their computer equipment, ideally into nearby municipal heating systems. It seemed like a no-brainer, says Patrick Graichen, who served as a senior official at Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy at the time, before resigning over cronyism allegations.
“我们需要清洁的热源，而数据中心正是提供清洁热能的场所，”格拉伊亨对《WIRED》杂志说道。
“We need clean heat, and data centers are a source of clean heat,” Graichen tells WIRED.
在法规正式生效前的一个月（6月），德国联邦政府撤回了这项规定。数据中心企业抱怨这些规定使得在该国建设数据中心几乎变得不可能；德国数据中心协会甚至将这项法案的早期版本称为“阻碍数据中心发展的法案”。根据修订后的法案（该法案即将提交德国议会批准），数据中心运营商不再被强制要求必须回收废热，只是被允许探索回收废热的可能性而已。
In June, a month before the rules were due to finally take effect, the German federal government walked them back. Data center firms had complained that the requirements made it almost impossible to build in the country; the German Data Center Association characterized an early version of the bill as a “data center prevention act.”Under an amended bill, which will be put to the German parliament for ratification imminently, data center operators would no longer be obligated to reuse waste heat, only to scope out the possibility.
格拉伊亨等人指责德国政府为了抓住人工智能发展的机遇而放弃了气候保护目标。不过，整个欧洲各国都面临着类似的困境：一方面需要利用人工智能产业带来的快速增长机会，同时又要减少对美国的依赖并保护环境。德国经济事务与能源部未对记者的评论请求作出回应。
Graichen and others have accused the German government of sacrificing climate targets for a chance to ride the AI wave. But countries across Europe find themselves pulled between these same two poles, under simultaneous pressure to cash in on rapid growth in the energy-intensive AI sector—and limit dependence on the US—and to protect the climate. The German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy did not respond to a request for comment.
在数据中心开发商中，对最初的《能效法》的主要反对意见在于，它可能使他们陷入无法摆脱的困境，即无论是否存在可用的消纳途径——无论是市政供热系统还是温室农业等产业——都必须强制回收废热。“他们必须遵守的一些事情超出了他们的控制范围，”咨询公司昆达尔（Cundall）关键系统副总监芭芭拉·斯米滕（Barbara Smitten）说，“感觉（负担）全落在了数据中心身上。”
Among data center developers, the chief objection to the original Energy Efficiency Act was the chance it could land them in an impossible bind, obligated to reuse waste heat even when there was no available offtake—whether a municipal heating system or an industry, like greenhouse agriculture. “Some of the things they had to comply with were outside of their control,” says Barbara Smitten, associate director for critical systems at consulting firm Cundall. “It felt that [the burden] was all on the data center.”
在过去的十八个月里，德国有多项数据中心提案告吹：斯塔克基础设施公司（Stack Infrastructure）取消了黑森州一座价值三十亿美元的设施，国有企业科姆公司（Komm.ONE）则退出了一项巴登-符腾堡州的项目。尽管一个数据中心项目的夭折究竟是什么原因导致的往往并不明朗，但科姆公司直接将矛头指向了《能效法》带来的负担。
In the last 18 months, multiple data center proposals have fallen through in Germany: Stack Infrastructure canceled a $3 billion facility in Hesse, and state-owned Komm.ONE withdrew from a project in Baden-Württemberg. Though precisely what causes a data center development to fold is rarely clear, Komm.ONE pointed directly to the burdens of the Energy Efficiency Act.
格赖兴声称，该行业的反对意见毫无根据。他表示，是否存在热力消纳途径应当成为任何开发商寻找新址时的默认标准。“别再抱怨了，”他说。
Graichen claims that the industry’s objections are groundless. He says the availability of a heat offtake should become a default criterion for any developer searching for a new site. “Stop complaining,” he says.
当存在消纳途径时，循环利用数据中心产生的热量其实很简单。“没有任何技术理由表明数据中心不能利用其废热。相关技术和概念都是众所周知的，”参与制定全欧盟数据中心能效目标的IT咨询公司Carbon3IT董事总经理约翰·布斯（John Booth）说，“除了机构自身的意愿之外，绝对没有任何理由（不去这样做）。”然而，根据修改后的《能效法》，数据中心开发商仅被要求评估回收热量在经济和技术上是否可行。
When an offtake is available, recycling heat produced by a data center is straightforward. “There is no technical reason why a data center cannot use its waste heat. The technologies and concepts are well known,” says John Booth, managing director at IT consultancy Carbon3IT, who helped to devise EU-wide energy efficiency targets for data centers. “There is absolutely no reason except the will of the organization to do it.”Nevertheless, under the amended Energy Efficiency Act, data center developers are required only to assess whether recycling heat is economically and technically feasible.
如果不可行，则可以豁免。“通过针对数据中心的切实规则，我们正在为数字主权和经济增长创造条件，”联邦经济事务和能源部长卡特琳娜·赖歇（Katherina Reiche）在内阁批准该修改时写道。
If not, they are exempt. “With practical rules for data centers, we are creating the conditions for digital sovereignty and economic growth,” wrote Katherina Reiche, federal minister for economic affairs and energy, when the cabinet approved the change.
这一修正案可能会释放出数据中心开发商在德国建设的压抑需求，德国的地理中心地位使得将数据高效路由至西欧和东欧变得轻而易举。“它降低了人们认为德国市场缺乏吸引力的风险，”斯米滕表示。
The amendment may unlock pent-up demand among data center developers to build in Germany, whose geographic centrality makes it easy to route data efficiently into Western and Eastern Europe. “It lessens the risk of people not seeing the German market as attractive,” says Smitten.
但通过曲折的方式，它也可能破坏引发建设狂潮的目标，从而招致在美国导致审批冻结和数据中心暂停令的那类气候导向型激进主义。早在2月，德国一个小镇的市议会就投票决定阻止一项价值25亿美元的数据中心开发项目的建设，部分原因就是出于气候方面的担忧。
But in a roundabout way, it could also undermine the aim to spark a building frenzy, inviting the type of climate-focused activism that has led to permitting freezes and data center moratoria in the US. Already, in February, the city council of a small German town voted to block the construction of a $2.5 billion data center development, partly over climate concerns.
随着政策制定者们在提升国内人工智能能力与实现气候目标这两种相互冲突的雄心之间艰难应对，一些人表示，公众对这种权衡日益增长的不安情绪将使欧洲的事情变得更加复杂。在过去的一年里，对数据中心的态度“已经发生了彻底转变，”格赖兴称。“首当其冲的是美国，但欧洲也会发生同样的情况。”
As policymakers contend with conflicting ambitions to improve domestic AI capabilities and meet climate objectives, some say the swelling public unease about that trade-off will complicate things yet further in Europe. In the last year, the attitude toward data centers “has switched completely,” claims Graichen. “First and foremost in the US, but the same will happen in Europe.”