More transparency needed on sprawling data center projects, activists claim

Data centers are cropping up across the world in a mad race to provide processing infrastructure deemed necessary to power the AI revolution.

Yet governments keep waving projects through without talking to locals or warning residents about potentially damaging impacts like water use or noise and air pollution.

That's according to a panel of speakers at this year's Mozilla Festival taking place in Barcelona, Spain – all of whom had investigated data center projects as part of their journalism or activism.

Paz Peña, an independent consultant and a Mozilla Senior Fellow, noted that big tech companies aren’t solely in the crosshairs for criticism – this is down to governments to regulate.

"It's not just about holding accountable companies, but government," she said.

Peña pointed to a case in Santiago, Chile where the community fought a Google data center via court, which found that the government should have informed locals about the impact on water use.

"The government was saying it's a corporate secret," she said, but the court disagreed — again holding the government to account rather than the company, though Google did have to rejig its plans with climate considerations in mind.

Consumer shaming

Tessa Pang, impact editor at Lighthouse Reports, predicted that messaging from the tech industry will start to include "consumer shaming" as projects globally continue at a rapid pace.

If you use tech products or AI, how can you complain about a data center in your own backyard? Peña agreed that it can feel "uncomfortable" to criticize tech giants and their infrastructure demands when you yourself use their services.

While Pang called for us all to use AI in ethical ways – and only when really needed – she stressed that consumers are not the "enemy", but the focus should be on government and companies instead.

This is particularly true when it comes to energy, now that data centers have become the biggest clients for energy companies, Peña added.

"Basically the energy transition is based on the needs of big tech," she said. "This is incredibly dangerous."

The panel agreed that there is a growing sense that AI and the data centers powering them may be a bad deal for many people – especially as energy prices start to rise – but added that it's difficult for local governments to push back.

Demanding better

Pablo Jiménez Arandia, a freelance journalist covering the area, called for attendees to imagine you're a small town mayor and Google or AWS shows up promising to spend billions on a data center that will provide local jobs – is it even possible to say no?

"We have to be aware of this power imbalance," he said.

That's made harder by big tech lobbying, and by well-oiled public relations machines. While those two activities add to the challenge, Peña noted that big tech's desire to maintain positive public relations suggested they were at least attempting to look good, offering a route to successful campaigns for activists.

Ultimately, they want to be seen as good actors, not bad actors, she noted.

The point isn't just outright banning data centers, but ensuring local communities have a well-informed voice that's defended by governments, and encouraging a better way of rolling out necessary infrastructure.

"This is not the only AI possible," said Arandia. "This is the AI of a group of elites in Silicon Valley. There are alternatives to build sustainable, fair systems."

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