Resisting AI data centres

AI is increasingly hard to avoid on our screens, and the material reality is that its expansion is having a detrimental effect on Indigenous people, workers and the environment. The hyper-scale data centres at the heart of the AI “industrial revolution” rely on an explosion in semiconductor production, and massive electricity and water use.

 

These aren’t your parents’ data centres, that have provided data storage, web hosting and other computer services for decades. Those typically consumed less than 5 megawatts (MW – or a million watts) of power. Hyper-scale data centres, however, range from consuming around 30 MW all the way up to multiple gigawatts (GW – or a billion watts) of power. This hunger for electricity is being driven by the vast arrays of high-powered computer chips needed for AI, which run very hot and must be cooled. Even so the chips only last months before being replaced.

 

Some AI data centres are cooled via the heat absorbed by the evaporation of water, which is needed in enormous quantities - preferably clean municipal drinking water to minimize mineral buildup on pipes. Others use water from lakes or rivers to absorb excess heat, and then release this heated water back to the environment. Still others use closed loop systems that consume less water directly, but require more power to remove the heat from the water before it is re-cycled through the cooling system. In some closed loop systems, glycol (anti-freeze) is mixed with water to improve efficiency, which raises the potential for environmental damage if there are leaks.

 

At a time when the disastrous impacts of the climate and ecological crisis are increasingly clear, expanding hyper-scale data centres threatens to accelerate them: through greater (largely “natural” gas-fired) electricity consumption, increased pollution from mine tailings and intensified water use.

 

Why AI?

 

AI is being deployed so bosses can replace programmers, administrators and supervisory labour to reduce overall labour costs. It is not clear whether it can deliver on this promise. In this respect, however, it is similar to the application of machinery in factories to increase productivity: as whole industries adopt the new methods, the proportion of capital invested in machinery rises while the proportion invested in labour falls. This ultimately creates downward pressure on the rate of profit, since it is based on the surplus created by labour. But capitalists have no choice but to compete to implement the new, more productive methods – in this case AI – in order to keep pace.

 

But AI is a bubble economy, with investments far exceeding any reasonable expectation of return. It would likely already have collapsed, but for the connection to rising military spending. States invest in AI for military applications as they seek to keep pace in the global imperialist competition – dominated by the US and China, but including many regional and junior powers.

 

In Canada, we are at the start of a massive wave of hyper-scale data centre expansion, echoing a similar wave in the US. Canadian data centres in operation this June had a combined power use of 1.6 GW. New data centre proposals would increase this by almost 10 times to 14 GW.  90% of this expansion would be in Alberta, including some of the largest proposed hyper-scale data centre projects: The Synapse project in Olds, and the Wonder Valley Alberta project on Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation land.

 

Both of these are intended to train AI models, but also face obstacles around regulatory approval and local resistance.

 

The 1.4 GW Synapse project is a 10 building proposal powered by a dedicated fossil gas-fired electricity plant, all within the town limits of the town of Olds that has a population of 10,000. 1,500 local residents applied to join consultations to express concerns about noise, pollution, home values, safety and strain on local health care and emergency services. In mid-August, the Alberta Utilities Commission denied the application for the gas plant, saying “[t]he site is simply not suitable for the proposed development.”

 

Outrageously, Alberta’s Aboriginal Consultation Office advised the municipality to skip Indigenous consultation with Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation (SLCN) when applying for a permit for 6 million cubic metres of water. In response, SLCN won their request for a judicial review which will go ahead in December despite the attempts by ODL to have it quashed.

Chief Sheldon Sunshine said that “SLCN is happy to have the opportunity to vindicate our Treaty rights and hold the Crown accountable on consultation.

 

“O’Leary’s data centre here in Alberta is a mind-boggling, massive project, which the province has been shepherding through their regulatory system using the municipality to evade their duties to us. There is no environmental assessment and next to no consultation with our nations.”

 

Both these projects supply their own electricity as mandated by the province for projects exceeding 75 MW. These are guaranteed to be gas-fired electricity plants because provincial regulations consider renewables “unreliable”.

 

Opposition to new data centres is also growing among residents in cities and towns in Alberta – and across all of so-called Canada.

 

A proposed Meta data centre in Sturgeon County north of Edmonton was protested by hundreds of people outside the county office in August.

 

Rocky View County bordering Calgary voted to pause new data centre proposals until new rules can be worked out to regulate these projects effectively.

 

In late August Alberta’s Technology Minister Nate Glubish was lambasted at two AI Data Centre Town Halls by people opposing them in Lacombe and Sturgeon County.

 

4,500 residents of Sherbrooke, Quebec signed a petition calling for more transparency on a data centre they say is being pushed by the council without addressing their concerns.

 

In Ontario movements have demanded a pause on these developments, and municipalities have responded in various ways. Oakville city council voted in August to enact a one-year moratorium on data centre developments to study whether regulations need to be updated to address noise, vibration, and emissions issues, along with broader land use considerations. Burlington city council voted down a moratorium in July, while Mississauga is scheduled to vote on a moratorium in September. In Toronto, over 8,000 people submitted comments demanding a moratorium in late July, as the City Council considered two different data centre proposals in Etobicoke and Scarborough: while a moratorium was not granted, the council asserted more oversight over the developments.

 

These follow on from widespread resistance to data centres in the US that has won statewide moratoriums in New York and Texas.

 

Premier Doug Ford responded to the resistance with “a new data centre playbook” that he claims will produce $122 billion in economic growth by 2035 and create 17,000 new jobs annually. He says they are necessary to ensure “data sovereignty”. While he has attempted to address power and water concerns, he has called those resisting “hypocrites”.

 

The economic forecasts and claimed safeguards should be taken with a grain of salt, and if they really cared about “data sovereignty” governments would safeguard people’s private information in their own public facilities, not in ones privately run that are beholden to tech billionaires.

 

New electricity demand from expanding data centre infrastructure is incorporated into Ontario’s plans for the massive expansion of nuclear and gas electricity generation. Like Alberta, Ontario refuses to invest in renewable energy, claiming it is unreliable.

 

In Hamilton, an interim control bylaw that called for a year-long moratorium on hyper-scale data centres in the city was defeated in July. But in June, a broad movement had successfully pressured the city council to reject the severance of 188 acres of former Stelco land to build a hyper-scale data centre. The Hamilton District Labour Council participated in this pushback, demanding that this data centre be subject to a binding Community Benefit agreement that “compensates the city for the permanent loss of industrial capacity, including direct contributions to local skills training.” They pointed out the data centres include very low ratios of permanent full-time jobs compared to factories and offices.

 

Lily Chang of the Canadian Labour Congress brought workers’ concerns to the International Labour Congress in June:

 

 “Artificial intelligence is already transforming workplaces and industries around the world. Workers see the potential, but many are also worried about what it means for their jobs, their privacy, and their futures.

 

“Workers cannot be expected to carry the burden of economic uncertainty by giving up fundamental rights. The right to organize, bargain collectively, and strike are essential to ensuring workers have a meaningful voice in the economy and in their workplaces.”

 

The widespread resistance to hyper-scale data centres comes from across the political spectrum, reflecting community concerns about noise, pollution, the climate crisis and water usage. Many people rightly question the expansion of AI and its connection to driving down workers’ wages and working conditions and its use in expanding military applications.

 

Organized labour has a crucial role to play in wresting control over these technologies away from the tech billionaires.