AI data centres allege discrimination, says Arwa Mahdawi

Datacenters now consume 6% of electricity supply in the UK and US, and the figure is expected to climb sharply: by 2030, they could account for more than 14% of America’s total power demand. The surge is driven by the artificial intelligence boom, which demands enormous computing power. But the physical footprint of these facilities is not only straining energy grids – it is also triggering a cultural and legal backlash that raises fundamental questions about whose rights matter most.

The rise of AI culture – and what it is displacing

The warning might sound familiar. In 2016, Marco Gutiérrez, the Mexican-born founder of Latinos for Trump, told MSNBC that his culture was “very dominant” and “imposing”, adding: “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.” A decade later, the takeover is not by immigrant culture but by AI culture. To echo Gutiérrez: it is imposing and causing problems. “And if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to have datacenters on every corner,” wrote the Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi.

Datacenters – physical facilities housing storage systems, servers and network devices – are a critical part of the internet. Without them, the banking system would collapse, streaming services would stop and social media would vanish. Yet the AI boom has massively expanded their footprint. “When a data center comes online, retail customers usually help to foot the electric bill: American utilities sought almost thirty billion dollars in retail rate increases in the first half of 2025,” the New Yorker reported. A new study, cited by Bloomberg, found that “power prices on the largest electric grid in the US jumped 76% in the first quarter due to rampant demand from data centers.”

It is not just the cost. AI datacenters are noisy, emit pollution that can harm community health, and divert much-needed resources. Last year residents in Fayetteville, Georgia, discovered that a nearby datacenter had taken 30m gallons of water, initially without paying for it, leading to low water pressure. A Gallup poll found that seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing AI datacenters in their local area. In fact, most Americans would rather live near a nuclear power plant than a datacenter.

The people getting rich from AI appear blasé about the consequences. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, told podcaster Theo Von that while he was not sure where things were heading, “I do guess a lot of the world gets covered in datacenters over time.” The venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, who is proposing a $100bn AI datacenter in Utah, has claimed that protesters are not genuinely concerned but are “professional protesters that are paid by somebody”.

Local backlash and the resource crunch

Public opposition is intensifying. According to a Gallup survey, 71% of Americans oppose AI datacenters in their communities, with the figure rising to 75% among Democrats and 74% among Independents. Key concerns include excessive water and energy use, pollution, noise, traffic and land-use conflicts. Global projections suggest AI’s water demand could reach billions of cubic metres annually. Google’s datacenters consumed 19.5m cubic metres of water in 2022, a 20% increase on the previous year, while Microsoft’s global water use rose 34% in the same period. A single 100MW datacenter can use 2m litres of water a day. The UK already faces a projected daily water deficit, and current national water resource plans do not adequately account for AI datacenter demand.

Energy consumption is equally troubling. AI datacenters in the UK could emit up to 123m tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next ten years, a figure the UK government has significantly underestimated. Much of the electricity comes from fossil fuels. Global datacenter electricity demand could more than double by 2026.

Legal personhood: the next frontier

As backlash grows, the industry has begun to argue that datacenters deserve legal protections – even rights. In Ypsilanti Township, Michigan, officials voted for a year-long moratorium on water and sewer services for a proposed $1.2bn University of Michigan datacenter designed for nuclear weapons research and AI. The university responded with a legal threat, claiming the moratorium was “pretextual and unlawfully discriminatory because it singles out ‘data centers’ by label rather than by utility impact”.

This is not an isolated case. Corporate personhood has been part of US law for more than a century, and the rights afforded to corporations have steadily expanded. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling found that corporations have a right to political speech. In 2014, the Hobby Lobby decision allowed some companies to claim religious exemptions from providing contraception in employee health plans, broadening the scope of personhood rights by acknowledging a right to corporate religious expression. Then, in 2023, the court’s 303 Creative LLC v Elenis ruling held that a website design business owned by an evangelical Christian could refuse service to same-sex couples, putting the free speech rights of corporations over the rights of LGBTQ+ people not to be discriminated against.

“Today the Supreme Court once again advanced the personhood rights of some corporations to the detriment of actual human beings,” the Brennan Center for Justice said after the Hobby Lobby judgment. “[We are] very concerned about the continued trend of corporations successfully asserting the rights of human beings, while injuring the interests of actual human beings.”

Given the trajectory, it may not be long before datacenters claim more rights than women or university students. In a separate development, Oklahoma this month passed a law (SB 504) that makes it illegal for anyone under 18 to be married, removing exceptions for parental consent or court approval. While one lawmaker voted against it, the bill was largely uncontroversial – a rare instance of human rights being strengthened. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has allowed the abortion pill mifepristone to continue to be available by mail, preserving access even as anti-abortion extremists are expected to continue their attempts to outlaw the drug nationwide.

The contrast is stark: as corporations gain rights, the protections for actual human beings – from clean water to bodily autonomy – remain contested. And as datacenters multiply, the question is no longer just about energy bills. It is about who gets to decide what rights matter most.