Data Centres: Powering AI or Costing the Earth?

London Climate Action Week event, Thursday, June 25, 13:00.

Watch the recording here:

About this event

New hyperscale data centres are expected to be one of the major drivers of global growth in electricity demand in the coming years. Governments are being promised jobs, growth and economic revival. But as tech giants roll back their climate commitments and build new, fossil fuel capacity to power their data centres, the reality looks darker: net zero targets undermined, water supplies degraded, and communities displaced. Even supposedly ‘green’ data centres risk diverting renewable energy from the transition it was meant to power. It remains unclear whether anyone beyond the world’s wealthiest tech companies will benefit. Meanwhile, the public – and the climate – risk being left to bear the costs.

Join lawyers, campaigners, activists, economists and lawmakers for a lively conversation about what AI infrastructure expansion within planetary boundaries could actually look like, what effective regulation requires — and whether governments and regulators will act in time.

Foxglove

Foxglove is an independent non-profit organisation that fights to make tech fair for everyone. Foxglove fights for a fairer tech future using litigation, campaigning and communication. We join hands with other organisations, unions and people at the sharp end of tech abuses. Together, we fight to win tech power back.

Foxglove brought and won the UK’s first case challenging a hyperscale data centre based on government failure to assess its environmental impact and together with partners has filed legal objections to a hyperscale data centre in Cape Town, South Africa on environmental grounds. We have also brought into the public spotlight the environmental impacts of data centres, from water to energy demands and emissions.