In August I attended a meeting of campaigners and councillors in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, where the government has recently approved plans for a 5,200 sq mile datacentre on the site of an old brewery off Brick Lane. The meeting, held on a sunny Monday evening, went on for three hours, in a stifling hall so packed that organisers had to create an overflow room. It’s a testament to how divisive the subject has become.
The new east London datacentre won’t be anywhere near as large as the “hyperscale” datacentres that power AI, which are typically 10,000 square feet or more. Neither is it the first to be built in the area (there are already three similarly sized developments nearby). But attenders I spoke with shared the same concerns as other campaign groups globally. They worried about the amount of energy the building will consume (5.2MW, according to a local campaign group, which is enough to power 15,000 homes), about its use of water (projections for this haven’t been released), and about the noise and heat it could emit.
They have good reasons to be concerned. The IMF estimates that by 2030, datacentres will consume more energy than all but the world’s three largest state emitters (China, India and the United States). They are already driving up electricity prices: one analysis found that wholesale electricity prices rose 267% over five years in locations near datacentres in Virginia. And although the industry argues that technology in newer AI datacentres consume less water than older facilities, not even the Environment Agency knows how much water datacentres use. It’s one of many unknowns.
Much of the anger here centres on how it’s been approved. Despite fierce opposition from local residents and Tower Hamlets council, which wants the site to be used for hundreds of homes, housing secretary Angela Rayner intervened, overruling the council to approve the application, citing its creation of 44 homes (only six of which will be socially rented) as a “significant” public benefit.
“When you have Andy Burnham talking about devolution and democracy, this feels like a slap in the face,” Henna Khanom, a Tower Hamlets resident, told me. “To me, it feels like many of these are springing up in places where low-income, ethnic minority communities just don’t have the power to resist these changes.”
This reflects a feature common to many of these battles: locals feel that datacentres are being forced on them against their will, with very little transparency or democratic oversight.
How many datacentres exist?
Globally, the number of “hyperscale” datacentres has nearly tripled since 2018. The UK had 52 datacentres in 2000, and today there are an estimated 520, roughly 48 of which are “hyperscale”, though it’s impossible to get exact figures, since nobody (not even the government) knows the total number that have been built. In the US, where local governments have signed NDAs with tech companies, information is shielded from scrutiny. In the EU, Microsoft and other American tech companies successfully lobbied to conceal the environmental impact of their developments.
Secrecy is power, particularly when your industry devours massive amounts of energy, much of it powered by fossil fuels. Because developers can wait years for an electricity grid connection, many are now opting to build their own gas-fired power plants instead. In the UK, more than 100 datacentres intend to burn gas to generate their electricity. It’s possible that some may do this permanently. These are reasons you might expect more scrutiny of these developments, not less.
“We’re in an extremely anti-democratic moment with AI,” the Guardian’s tech correspondent Aisha Down tells me. It’s no wonder, then, that so many protests are kicking off. Several weeks ago, police in Scotland warned one developer that public anger over these buildings was so great it now poses a security risk.
Why does the government want more of them?
The Starmer government tended to proselytise about the benefits of big tech. In documents outlining the UK’s AI strategy last year, it argued that datacentres were “the engines of the AI age”, and set out its plans to accelerate construction. So far, Burnham’s government seems to agree: last week, he rejected the Green party’s proposal for a moratorium on new developments, arguing this would “send investment and good jobs abroad”.
Since the start of this year, the government has allowed datacentres to opt into Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPS), where the secretary of state rather than local councils make planning decisions, enabling developers to bypass local scrutiny. Two of the first datacentres to opt into the NSIPs scheme are applying to build new private gas power stations to fire up their operations, which will together be responsible for more than 4.5m tonnes of carbon emissions. “Most people don’t want diesel generators running constantly near where they live,” Aisha says. “That sort of thing is upsetting to communities.”
What are they good for?
With all the recent attention on datacentres, it’s worth noting many have existed for years, quietly whirring away and processing information you need to send emails or read newsletters like this one. Clearly, we need some datacentres. The question is whether we need the “hyperscale” variety.
There has been lots of noise among policymakers about the UK being an “AI maker, not an AI taker” that can’t afford to be left behind in the AI “race” or lose its AI “sovereignty.” But nobody seems to agree on exactly how datacentres achieves these vague aims. Will they rejuvenate post-industrial areas with shiny new jobs? Probably not. Will they help the UK “shape the AI revolution”? It’s hard to see precisely how, when US tech companies building many of the datacentres on UK soil retain control over infrastructure, IP and profits. “People in the highest echelons of power seem to be making policy based on AI Fomo and vibes,” Aisha says.
We’ll return to this vibes-based strategy and the risky financing of the AI boom in future newsletters. For now, it’s clear these fights reflect a feeling that datacentres are something done to communities, regardless of whether they consent. The Burnham government hopes to reignite people’s faith in democracy by giving them more control. The battle over datacentres will be a major test of that commitment.
Campaigners trying to prevent a new AI datacentre planned for the old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
