Few things unite Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters with the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, but datacentres are one of them. Across the USA, communities are joining forces across the political divide to oppose infrastructure few want but governments seem determined to impose.

Michigan is among the places where this is happening. Residents have come together across party lines to oppose plans for over a dozen datacentres. Polling shows just 28 per cent of the state’s population supports the proposals, but few established politicians are listening. The leaders of both major parties are firmly in the tech industry’s corner. Yet local communities are fighting back, and similar struggles are unfolding around the world.

Datacentre impacts

Datacentre construction is booming, driven by the burgeoning use of generative AI and the growing cryptocurrency industry. Both demand vast computing power, which requires huge amounts of electricity and water for cooling.

A single question to an AI chatbot can use 10 times more energy than a conventional search, and generating an AI image takes around a thousand times more energy than generating text. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that datacentre electricity demand will double by 2030. By then, United Nations research suggests, datacentres will consume three times the combined electricity of Bangladesh, Nigeria and Pakistan, and the same amount of water that would meet the basic needs of the entire Sub-Saharan African population.

Ireland’s datacentres now use a fifth of the country’s electricity. In Utah, despite thousands of objections from residents, authorities recently approved one of the world’s largest datacentres, which will need more power than the entire state currently uses.

The Utah development will be powered by a new gas-fired plant, and this is symptomatic of how the energy problem is being addressed. AI growth is driving the construction of gas-powered plants, the opposite of what the climate crisis demands. According to the IEA, coal is currently the top energy source for datacentres, followed by renewables and then gas, meaning over half of all current datacentre power comes from fossil fuels. The agency expects renewables to eventually provide a bigger share of growing electricity needs, but also warns that datacentre demand is ‘a significant near-term driver of growth for natural gas-fired and coal-fired generation’.

Tech companies that once pledged to be climate leaders can no longer back up their claims. Google promised to become net zero by 2030, but its greenhouse gas emissions leapt 48 per cent between 2019 and 2023 as it embraced gas-fired electricity to power datacentre expansion. In Mumbai, India, two coal plants due to close in 2024 as part of the government’s emissions-reduction plans have had their operational life extended to meet demand from Amazon datacentres. Authorities in Ireland decided last December that datacentres can keep using fossil fuel electricity for six more years. Elon Musk’s xAI company was found to be illegally using methane-powered turbines in a Tennessee datacentre earlier this year. The UK intends to burn gas to power over 100 planned new datacentres.

More datacentres mean more greenhouse gas emissions, and their rapid expansion risks renormalising fossil fuels just as they appeared to be on their way out.

AI proponents talk up the technology’s potential to help address climate change, for example, by working out ways to cut electricity use. But even genuine energy efficiency gains are likely to be wiped out by the sheer number of planned datacentres. AI has also turbocharged climate disinformation. Fossil fuel companies lobby for datacentres almost as hard as tech companies do, because they help perpetuate a destructive business model otherwise threatened by the shift to renewables. Fossil fuel corporations were among Donald Trump’s top re-election campaign backers, and they’re benefiting from his administration’s rollback of regulations and stated ambition, set out in its 2025 AI Action Plan, to achieve ‘unchallenged global technological dominance’.

Water supplies are coming under greater strain. One large datacentre can use as much water daily as a town of 50,000 people, yet datacentres are being built in some of the world’s driest regions. Amazon plans to open new datacentres in Aragon, Spain, even as the regional government seeks European Union drought-relief assistance. Similar water scarcity concerns surround plans for one of the world’s biggest datacentres in the United Arab Emirates, and other projects in the Gulf region.

On top of this, there’s growing concern about potential local environmental impacts, including from the use of ‘forever chemicals’ in cooling systems. These are compounds that don’t break down and have been linked with an array of health problems.

Datacentre development may also raise costs for households through higher energy bills. When electricity companies build infrastructure to connect datacentres to energy grids, they may recover the costs by raising electricity rates for everyone. Even without new infrastructure, if demand increases but supply doesn’t, costs will rise.

Backlash

Development is proceeding at pace, but may rest on speculation that overstates real demand. Many people remain wary of AI tools, and the technology’s benefits are likely being exaggerated. Companies that once encouraged employees to use AI as much as possible are now ordering them to cut back due to high costs. It’s reported that 29 per cent of US companies that fired people and switched to AI have had to rehire them after finding that the technology couldn’t do their jobs.

The backlash is strongest among Generation Z, whose entry-level jobs are most at risk. Graduation season in the USA has seen students jeering speakers who talked up the prospects of AI. In a recent US poll, only 22 per cent of Gen Z respondents said they felt excited about the future impacts of AI. A poll in the UK found that 55 per cent of people aged 15 to 24 would like to see generative AI ‘disappear forever’.

Meanwhile, claims that datacentres will bring jobs are largely far-fetched. When the UK government pledged last year to ‘turbocharge AI’, it argued that datacentres would help create thousands of jobs and kickstart sluggish economic growth. Datacentres are often built in poor and excluded communities desperate for good-quality jobs, but most of the work is in short-term construction. Once operational, datacentres need only a small staff, mostly in low-paid maintenance and security jobs.

Governments’ embrace of datacentres partly reflects the deep and unaccountable power of tech companies and their leaders, and their tight connections with political elites. It also points to the limited options governments have to seek economic growth and create jobs under economic rules that seem designed only to make oligarchs ever richer. In global north cities hollowed out by deindustrialisation, datacentre construction may seem like the only tool available. In global south countries, tech companies seek to exploit low wages and limited labour rights, not raise standards.

Governments at every level are chasing datacentre development by offering incentives such as tax credits. Ireland’s low corporate tax regime is one reason so many tech companies have established themselves there. But it’s societies that end up paying for the climate and environmental impacts.

Civil society resistance

The struggle against tech companies and their lobbying riches is an unequal one, but civil society is mounting an increasingly credible response. Those resisting untrammelled datacentre expansion range from grassroots groups and local protesters to established organisations such as Greenpeace and high-profile campaigners such as the USA’s Erin Brockovich.

Climate litigation is now an established civil society tactic, and recent research indicates that lawsuits are an emerging response to datacentre developments, with recent examples in Ireland, the UK and the USA. US plants that produce cooling gases containing forever chemicals also face lawsuits over alleged environmental harm. At the same time, civil society groups are filing objections in local planning processes, including one recently lodged against a huge proposed datacentre in Cape Town, South Africa.

Litigation is making a difference. Legal action by UK organisations Foxglove and Global Action Plan forced the developer of a huge new datacentre in Buckinghamshire to commit to binding environmental impact mitigation measures. Lawsuits are also exposing how datacentre impacts are often understated and inadequately measured. A 2022 court case forced Google to publish accurate water consumption figures for an Oregon datacentre.

Protests and campaigning are bringing successes. In 2023, protests driven by a recent drought forced Google to change plans for a datacentre in Uruguay, switching to an air cooling system that cut water use. Similar protests in Chile caused Google to pause its plans there. As of last year, public pressure had led to over US$42 billion worth of datacentre projects being changed, delayed or cancelled in Europe, and US$77 billion worth in the USA.

In the USA, civil society groups have forged alliances with sub-national administrations to develop stronger local environmental and accountability standards. While established politicians may show little inclination to challenge the power of tech companies, there are signs that local politics are shifting. In the USA, some candidates who ran on tickets opposing datacentre development have won, and several local administrations have introduced bans or moratoriums, including as a result of a public vote.

The Trump administration’s support for datacentres, however, remains unequivocal. The US Department of Justice recently intervened in a court case over Musk’s use of gas turbines, arguing that shutting them down would threaten national security because xAI is essential to the country’s war operations.

Campaign successes are bringing new threats. US industry lobbyists have smeared activists as agents of foreign influence determined to sabotage the country’s technological supremacy. Now they could be treated as terrorists. US government documents show a growing focus on what is characterised as ‘anti-technological extremism’, suggesting that security forces may already be gathering intelligence on campaigners, and peaceful protesters could be targeted for surveillance and criminalised on national security grounds.

Tech companies that are driving datacentre development often present themselves as free speech champions. They should prove it by ensuring that wherever they develop, people are able to protest, hold them to environmental standards and expose their adverse impacts. There’s widespread public opposition and no shortage of people bearing the climate and environmental costs of the datacentre boom. Their voices must be heard, not silenced.

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