Stop the AI Data Centers! Bring AI & Big Tech Into Public Control, Make Billionaires Pay!
By Kshama Sawant
Data centers have existed since the World Wide Web took off in the mid-1990s. But in the last five years, what are mainly being built are absolutely massive “hyperscale” data centers for AI, used for AI training and inference at unprecedented scale. There are nearly 4,500 data centers in the United States, accounting for about 45 percent of all facilities globally.
Standard data centers may have a few thousand servers. These new hyperscale facilities exceed 5,000 servers and can go up to hundreds of thousands of servers and can occupy millions of square feet. One hyperscale data-center campus can demand anywhere from 200 to more than 500 megawatts of electricity—as much as hundreds of thousands of American homes. There are approximately 600 to 650 operational hyperscale data centers in the United States, 54 percent of the total worldwide number.
These hyperscale data centers are already dramatically pushing up electricity bills for working people. Data Centers not only use up insane amounts of electricity, they also distort the flow of electricity to homes, increasing the risk of electrical fires and blackouts. Hyperscale data centers can also consume millions of gallons of water daily, sometimes leaving surrounding residences with dry taps. They cause air pollution, water pollution, and sound pollution, which have huge negative impacts on working people nearby and which come at a time when the climate crisis is already at a breaking point.
No wonder that seven out of ten Americans oppose the data centers and there is massive opposition to the proliferation of AI. Protests by working people have shut down the plans for about 48 of these data centers, equating roughly $68 billion worth of projects. But there are over 670 more hyper scale data centers in the pipeline. And countless more mass layoffs.
Overall, an expected $3 to $7 trillion is expected to be spent just on AI hyperscale data centers in the next five years or so. The super-rich are determined to ram through the data centers because of the trillions of dollars of profits that are at stake. AI is now a central component of genocide and imperialist war, ICE terror, mass layoffs, the surveillance state, and climate crisis because AI is the new frontier for super-profits for the super-rich.
The capitalist class will do anything they need to in order to keep expanding and profiting from AI. The institutions like the police, the courts, the U.S. Congress, State Legislatures, City Councils exist mainly to enforce the ability of the capitalist class to make maximum profits. They will intimidate, threaten, and try to crush the growing movement against data centers with arrests and lawsuits against those who dare to fight back. They have begun accusing opponents of AI data centers (most Americans) of “anti-tech extremism.”
The ruling class will absolutely not stop the AI and data center juggernaut unless threatened by a powerful nationwide mass movement with leaders who have a backbone to go up against billionaires and the proven strategy to win for working people.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are owned by the billionaire class and neither provides a path forward for working people. My main opponent, 29-year genocidal incumbent Democrat Adam Smith, is the top Democrat being funded by Palantir and Anduril, which profit from war and surveillance AI.
My campaign for Congress is fighting for an end to data centers and to ban all tax incentives for the super-rich in tech and real estate for AI data centers. I am fighting for a ban on the use of AI in wars. I am calling for a national ban on algorithmic rental price-fixing software. My campaign is the only one calling for Big Tech and Big Energy corporations to be taken into democratic public ownership by workers. This is the only way that technology can be harnessed for the good of working people and all living species, because we cannot control what we do not own.
With the billionaires playing for trillions of dollars of wealth from AI, they are gambling with the lives of billions of working people. Wall Street and the super-rich must pay for the coming economic recession, not working people.
The data center and mass layoff onslaught is not a ‘machines versus humans’ war — it is class war by the wealthy against billions of working and poor people. That’s why ending it will require an organized class war back against the bosses.
Kshama Sawant is a revolutionary socialist and a founding member of Workers Strike Back, who during her 10 years a Seattle City Council member, led the movement to win the nation’s highest minimum wage and the Amazon Tax on wealthy corporations to fund affordable housing. Kshama is now running for the U.S. Congress as an independent antiwar socialist. https://www.kshamasawant.org
Editor’s Note:
Canadian Prime Minister Carney has just announced “Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy” — allocating 2 billion dollars towards AI infrastructure, including the construction of large-scale data centres. More than 90 facilities are either being proposed or are under construction — in addition to the five that have already been built. The public is already skeptical of this strategy, with many communities across Canada uniting to push back against the rollout of AI data centres in their cities. In the face of large demonstrations, petitions and council delegations, the City of Hamilton, Ontario has voted for a moratorium on data centres to allow for public consultation and a robust environmental assessment.