Funders’ briefing – AI and data centres
The current wave of Artificial Intelligence requires huge amounts of computing power. As the AI boom takes off, data centres – giant warehouses housing servers that process and store data – have mushroomed, with a further €176bn investment in Europe anticipated in the next 5 years.
Data centres have direct impacts on the communities where they are sited – often in the poorest neighbourhoods. They take up large amounts of space, divert water to cool servers, and demand vast quantities of electricity to run. Globally electricity demand for data centres is contributing to an anticipated 10% increase in global power sector emissions. This energy demand cancels out gains from transition to renewables and extends reliance on fossil fuels.
Across Europe, communities and activists are already successfully challenging data centre expansion – demanding oversight and environmental responsibility and challenging corporate capture in policymaking. But the field remains under resourced, with only 2% of grantmaking around tech and society issues channelled towards technology’s environmental impacts.
This briefing by the European AI & Society Fund looks at the issues raised by Europe’s data centre expansion, how public interest groups are responding and outlines how funders can intervene.
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