Opposing data centres isn’t progressive

The fears around them are overblown, while the benefits are substantial

Vantage data centre complex in Ludwigsfelde, Germany (Magicmaik123/Shutterstock)

They don’t create many jobs. They guzzle electricity and use water. They are ugly, noisy and take up space. So why would anyone, least of all progressives, care about building data centres?

I am going to try to make a progressive case for them, while also acknowledging their limitations and arguing against some of the policies that AI companies are pushing for.

In common with wealth taxes and North Sea oil, data centres have become a site of ideological division that will only intensify. Opposition to them unites a broad range of groups, including environmentalists, NIMBYs, workers worried about jobs and millions of people who (not unreasonably) worry about the power of Big Tech over our economic future. Anti-AI anger is real. As my Centre for British Progress colleague Julia Willemyns has written:

Sam Altman’s home was recently attacked. A city-county council member woke up one day to find bullet holes in his home and a note that read ‘No Data Centers.’ In LA, Waymos are being vandalised. Cults are back. Political assassinations are in.

Closer to home, residents are protesting a new data centre in Brick Lane, London, and the Green Party has made it a defining campaign issue.

Meanwhile, AI companies are spending billions – trillions, even – on building data centres. New data centres are under construction in Northumberland (the former Blyth Power Station site), Essex (where the UK’s largest AI supercomputer is being built by Microsoft and Nscale), Bridgend (a former Ford engine plant), Stockport and London. Many more have been approved but not built yet.

Globally, AI data centres have become one of history’s largest and most rapid megaprojects, on a similar scale to the US Marshall Plan or the railway mania of the 1840s. Recent wobbles aside, investors generally seem to believe these bets will pay off. Even though stocks have recently fallen, bonds for data centres have held up well. Our future will be determined by whether these investors are right.