A perfect summer evening in east London — warm, bright, and absolutely heaving with people. Over three hours, residents packed into a sweltering hall to make their feelings known about a new datacentre creeping into their neighbourhood. An overflow room had to be hastily arranged. Welcome to the fierce new frontline of the AI revolution.
This summer, datacentres have become unlikely lightning rods for global unrest. From Scotland to India, communities are pushing back hard against the colossal facilities powering our artificial intelligence ambitions. The argument? These gleaming server farms guzzle energy, drain water supplies, and turbo-charge the climate crisis — all while governments wave them through with minimal scrutiny.
Yet ministers insist datacentres are non-negotiable for any nation serious about dominating AI. That collision of priorities is producing some of the most heated planning battles in years.
Local Anger, Global Pattern
The scene in Tower Hamlets encapsulates a worldwide movement. Campaigners there are battling a freshly approved 5,200-square-metre datacentre on the site of the old Truman Brewery off Brick Lane. It’s modest by industry standards — hyperscale facilities typically clock in at 10,000 square feet or more — and three similar sites already operate nearby. But residents are furious regardless.
Their concerns mirror those echoing across continents: the electricity drain, the water consumption, the noise, the heat. A local campaign group estimates the new facility will gobble up 5.2MW of power — enough to keep 15,000 homes humming. Water usage projections haven’t even been published.
The numbers backing up these anxieties are staggering. The IMF projects that by 2030, datacentres will guzzle more energy than every nation on Earth except China, India, and the United States. In Virginia, wholesale electricity prices have ballooned by 267% over five years in areas clustered around datacentre developments. And here’s the kicker — nobody, not even the Environment Agency, has reliable data on how much water these facilities actually consume.
Democracy or Heavy-Handed Government?
Much of the fury stems from how these decisions are made. Despite Tower Hamlets council objecting and locals begging for housing on the site, housing secretary Angela Rayner stepped in to overrule them. Her justification? The project will create 44 homes — only six of which are socially rented.
“Democracy is being trampled,” says Henna Khanom, a Tower Hamlets resident. “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.”
She’s not wrong. Secrecy is now standard practice across the industry. American tech firms have leaned on non-disclosure agreements with local governments, while in the EU, Microsoft and others successfully lobbied to shield environmental impact data from public view. In the UK, developers can now route applications through the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects scheme, bypassing local councils entirely and handing decisions directly to Whitehall.
Two datacentre operators have already seized this opportunity — and both plan to fire up their facilities with private gas power stations. Together, those plants will pump out more than 4.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
“We’re in an extremely anti-democratic moment with AI,” warns the Guardian’s tech correspondent Aisha Down. “Most people don’t want diesel generators running constantly near where they live. That sort of thing is upsetting to communities.” In Scotland, police have reportedly warned developers that public anger now poses a genuine security risk.
Hyperscale by the Numbers
Just how big has this boom become? Globally, hyperscale datacentre numbers have nearly tripled since 2018. Britain alone went from 52 facilities in 2000 to roughly 520 today — around 48 of which qualify as hyperscale. And here’s the troubling bit: even the government can’t tell you the exact total. Nobody has a complete count.
That opacity extends to their thirst for fossil fuels. More than 100 UK datacentres plan to burn gas for electricity, and some may never stop. For an industry whose entire pitch revolves around a sustainable, futuristic AI utopia, the contradiction is striking.
The Government’s AI Obsession
Ministers are doubling down regardless. The Starmer government previously branded datacentres “the engines of the AI age” and fast-tracked their construction. Andy Burnham’s administration isn’t budging either — last week, it rejected Green party calls for a moratorium, warning it would “send investment and good jobs abroad.”
The rhetoric is intoxicating: Britain must be an “AI maker, not an AI taker,” a sovereign player that can’t afford to fall behind in the global race. But scratch beneath the surface and the strategic logic gets fuzzy. Will these facilities truly rejuvenate post-industrial regions with gleaming employment opportunities? Probably not. Will they help Britain “shape the AI revolution”? Hard to say when American tech giants building on UK soil keep tight control over the infrastructure, intellectual property, and profits.
“People in the highest echelons of power seem to be making policy based on AI Fomo and vibes,” Down observes.
What’s Actually at Stake
Let’s be fair — datacentres aren’t inherently evil. They’ve quietly powered emails, cat videos, and newsletters like this one for years. Some capacity is essential.
The real question is whether we need the hyperscale variety in such numbers, particularly when they operate with such minimal oversight. Communities increasingly feel these developments are being forced upon them — done to them, not with them. The Burnham government has pledged to restore public faith in democracy by redistributing power to local communities. The datacentre boom will be one of the first major tests of whether that promise holds any weight.
Why it Matters
The datacentre backlash isn’t simply about server racks and cooling systems — it’s a referendum on who controls the AI revolution and who bears its costs. With energy bills climbing, climate targets slipping, and entire neighbourhoods being transformed without meaningful consultation, the technology powering tomorrow’s smartest algorithms is being built on today’s most combustible political fault lines. How governments navigate this standoff will shape not just the AI landscape, but the credibility of democratic decision-making in the digital age.