Perhaps the most audacious part of Pantheon’s plan is its answer to the data centre industry’s insatiable thirst for energy. The campus will be powered by a dedicated 500 MW solar plant and a massive 8,000 MWh battery storage system built on-site. Developed by Greenvolt, this behind-the-meter solution is designed to make the campus fully self-sufficient on renewable energy, sidestepping the congested national grids that cripple projects elsewhere.

But as the initial euphoria settles, a healthy dose of scepticism is beginning to surface, articulated most clearly by Marijana Puljak, a computer scientist and member of the Croatian Parliament. While stressing that she is “rooting for it, but I’m asking questions,” Puljak took to social media to highlight that the grand announcement left a trail of unanswered, and rather fundamental, questions.

Even more fundamentally, she raised serious doubts about the project’s much-touted energy self-sufficiency. A one-gigawatt data centre, she pointed out, would consume electricity equivalent to “approximately 40% of Croatia’s current total consumption.” The plan calls for a 500 MW solar plant to power this demand. Puljak highlighted the glaring discrepancy, noting that due to solar’s intermittent nature, the power plant could only cover “about ten percent of the data center’s constant energy needs” because the processors must operate 24/7. This raises serious questions about how the project will bridge the massive energy gap and its claim of being “fully self-sufficient.”