No to data centers: Aurora, Tu Nube Seca Mi Rio

Liminal, the radio programme about water and hacktivists. y 2030, the global data centres powering AI are expected to consume 945 TWh of electricity – nearly three times the total annual consumption of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria, which have a combined population of over 650 million.

Their water footprint will be equivalent to the basic annual domestic water needs of all 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, and their land footprint will be roughly twice the size of the Jakarta metropolitan area, which is home to more than 32 million people.

In many places around the world, people are rising up against data centres. They are defending their right to live in dignified conditions with a healthy environment; they are fighting to preserve their fundamental rights.

Let’s go back to 2021, when the big tech companies promised to be green and eco-friendly with Camila Nobrega and Joana Varon from Free − Big tech goes green(washing): Feminist lenses to unveil new tools in the master’s houses, GISWatch 2020: “Technology, the environment and a sustainable world: Responses from the global South” https://www.giswatch.org/.

And then we talk with Aurora / Tu Nube Seca Mi rio in response to Meta/Facebook’s initiative (2023) to build a large-scale data centre in Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, Spain. And, obviously, the discussion takes us far beyond that.