We are petitioning the government to ban new AI data centres.
Why?
Because the current AI plan is flawed.
The water industry says the government has no water forecasts in their AI plan. The regulator Ofgem says it can’t cope with the electricity demands of new AI projects. The noise pollution is unbearable for residents, so they can’t rest or sleep.
Ofgem reports that new data centre projects require 80GW of electricity. To put that in perspective, that's nearly double of peak electricity demand for 2025.
The Environmental Agency (EA) is projecting that we'll be in water deficit by 5 billion litres a day by 2050. That is enough water to fill up 4.5 Wembley Stadiums (Waterwise stat)
The drought this summer in England has brought home the impact of water scarcity.
Building more AI data centres is going to make the situation worse. Beyond burst mains and hosepipe bans causing water shortage, households may have to start competing with AI data centres for mains drinking water
Currently data centres use 6.6 million litres of potable water per day (equivalent to the daily consumption of 20,000 households) according to Water UK, the water industry's trade body. This figure is expected to triple in 4 years (by 2030) with the government's AI plan. If that was not all, the regulator Ofgem has reported that demands for electricity capacity has jumpted from 46GW to 125GW with AI data centre projects demanding capacity of 80GW, nearly double the peak electricity demand in 2025.
Above all, the noise pollution literally makes humans ill.
To be clear, the focus is on AI data centres, not standard data centres which give us Internet access.
AI data centres require 5x more electricity and 18x more water than standard ones (based on Ofgem and EA data).
This is not sustainable. We need the government to take stock and reassess. We need a better plan.
How you can help.
Sign the petition to ban new AI data centres now. No new data centre should be built until there are concrete plans to deal with these issues.