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Norway mulls datacentre licencing in bid to kick out cryptomining

Wants to know who's doing what in its datacentres

Norway mulls datacentre licencing in bid to kick out crypto-mining

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Norway mulls datacentre licencing in bid to kick out crypto-mining

Norwegian government ministers have put forward proposals to regulate datacentres in the country.

Digitalisation minister Karianne Tung and energy minister Terje Aasland told Norwegian newspaper VG that the new law would require datacentres to disclose who is behind the facility, the management and the services offered by the datacentre.

"This is incredibly important," said Aasland, as reported by VG and via Google Translate.

"It is very important to get a good overview of which services are offered in these datacentres. It is the socially useful datacentres that we want, they are important for infrastructure."

He continued: "By having to report what the datacentres will work on, the government believes local politicians in Norwegian municipalities will have a better basis to say yes or no to the establishment of a center in their municipalities."

The move comes amid increasing concern globally about the power and water used by datacentres. These demands are rising fast thanks to energy intensive workloads such as AI model training and proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining.

There is concern in countries like Ireland, where a lot of big tech firms are headquartered in Europe, that powering datacentres may come at the expense of local communities, and the planned construction of facilities in London have been delayed because of the electricity and water demand.

Last year, neighbouring Sweden increased taxes on data centres last year in an explicit bid to make crypto-mining unprofitable and the Swedish finance ministry sought an EU-wide ban on bitcoin mining. However, Tung said that Norway would be the first country in Europe to introduce legislation requiring datacentres to disclose the workloads running on their systems.

"The purpose is to regulate the industry in such a way that we can close the door on the projects we do not want," said Tung.

Aasland added that cryptocurrency mining falls into that category, being associated with high carbon emissions and questionable social value.

As Norway continues to digitise its services, and in view of security policies that require data to be stored locally, Tung said she wants its datacentres to prioritise this type of use.

"But then we have to be tougher on who we want and who we don't want," said Tung. "How many datacentres operate cryptomining in Norway today? We don't know that. But we will now get an answer."

Norway mulls datacentre licencing in bid to kick out cryptomining

Wants to know who's doing what in its datacentres

Norwegian government ministers have put forward proposals to regulate datacentres in the country.

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