Resistance to AI data centres is mounting in the US
Prince William County, Virginia, USA, Tuesday 4 May, 6.00 pm. Immediately after leaving the data centre, which I had visited with a group of MEPs, I climb out of the bus taking the other MEPs back to a posh hotel in Washington. The trip for us nine MEPs on the subject of AI was organised by the German Marshall Fund. I stand in the muggy air at the side of a busy road in Prince William County, Virginia, USA, waiting for Louise.
Louise Schlossberg is the spokesperson for “The Coalition to Protect Prince William County”, a local initiative campaigning against the massive concentration of data centres in northern Virginia. She suggested we meet at Brawner Farm on the Manassas Battlefield. This is where the First Battle of Manassas in the American Civil War took place in 1861. The historic sites, nestled in the heart of this green idyll, are carefully marked with information boards.
If the big tech companies get their way, this place of remembrance of slavery, emancipation and the Civil War will soon be obliterated. Overrun by massive data centres, substations and hundreds of diesel generators per data centre. Just as flattened as the idyllic meadows and pastures of the surrounding farms, where horses and cows graze.
Northern Virginia has the highest concentration of data centres in the world.
Virginia is home to one of the internet’s transatlantic hubs. For the past four years, one data centre after another has been springing up here. This is where the big tech companies based on the US west coast outsource their AI processing, into gigantic, sprawling blocks, many of which require the power of half a nuclear power station for their normal operation. Huge power lines criss-cross the landscape.
I tell Louise about our visit to the Corscale data centre we visited. 5 x 70 megawatts, 76 diesel generators. A relatively small ‘campus’, as they call these industrial complexes here. In the PowerPoint presentation shown to us there, the topic of ‘threats’ appears on page 2. Second only to cyber threats are “anti-data centre activists”. Louise laughs. “Do I look like the sort of person who would attack a data centre?” Louise is a social worker for pupils in Years 7 to 9 and owns a lovingly renovated house with plenty of land. She votes Republican one time, Democrat the next. Her husband is a conservative Republican.
“We just want a quiet life here and we love our county. But I wake up in the morning and can smell the exhaust fumes from the diesel generators of a data centre miles away in my bedroom.”
There are over 400 campuses in northern Virginia alone. According to a professor at George Mason University, who also works for the local energy company Dominion Energy, 26% of the electricity comes from nuclear power stations, 11% from renewable sources, and 6% from hydroelectric power. The rest is generated using oil and gas. The climate targets Virginia has set for itself are unachievable.
According to Louise, air pollution has increased. The electricity grid is overloaded. The energy supplier has ‘load-shedding’ agreements with the data centres. When the grid is overloaded, they switch from the mains to their autonomous backup supply. Hundreds of diesel generators then run, and the exhaust fumes can be smelled for miles.
In fact, the grid is now so overloaded that new data centres are no longer being connected. But anyone who installs their own gas turbines and signs their own contracts is allowed to continue building.
Wherever you look, there are data centres. In some cases, they are just a few metres away from people’s homes. The constant humming disturbs residents’ sleep. Those who can afford to move away do so. But the construction of a data centre causes house prices to fall. And electricity bills rise. As demand increases, the price of electricity rises, and in the US these price increases are passed on to all electricity customers. A representative of the US Conference of Mayors reports price increases of 200% in the areas most affected.
So ordinary families are footing the energy bill for the data centres of five major corporations – owned by the richest men in the world. This is how wealth is redistributed from the bottom up.
Louise is hopeful. A few months ago, the entire county council was voted out. The councillors had given the green light for the construction of further data centres. Meanwhile, according to many representatives from politics and civil society whom I met on my trip to the US, a large majority of people in the US are against AI. Rising electricity bills and rising unemployment among young, highly qualified college graduates are fuelling scepticism. In New York, Alex Bores is standing in the congressional primaries with a clear message against the dominance of tech companies (more on this in one of my next newsletters).
I take two messages away with me:
- The power of big tech companies is more fragile than it appears at first glance. In the US, these issues are mobilising many people and are decisive in how they vote in elections. This is a new development.
- In Germany, we need a sound, clearly formulated strategy for data centres. We need data centres that perform meaningful tasks for digitalisation. High resource efficiency and renewable energy are central to climate-friendly operations. At the same time, particularly when it comes to AI, we should focus strongly on sector-specific models that offer genuine added value for humanity. Climate, medicine and resource-efficient manufacturing technology in industry are good candidates. A development like that in the US, where AI companies without a clear business model are blowing climate targets out of the water, is definitely not desirable.
But one thing was also clear: those who are taking action against new and ever-larger data centres need two things above all: attention and support.
That is why I ask you: please forward this email to your contacts so that people like Louise are not left standing alone. And support her Coalition here.
Many thanks and determined regards,
Yours, Alexandra Geese