TL;DR
US companies building AI data centers in South Africa are competing with residents for scarce water and power, so local groups want construction paused until operators disclose what they use.
American data center companies are pouring billions into Africa to feed AI demand. South Africa has more data centers than anywhere else on the continent, mostly belonging to Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Equinix.
In August, Cape Town's Housing Assembly, a group that campaigns for housing for the poor, and the UK nonprofit Foxglove sued Equinix. They want data center construction paused until operators are forced to disclose what they take.
The fight is over water and power
Equinix's planned Cape Town facility would use over 4.4 billion litres of water a year, about as much as 18,000 households. Cape Town nearly ran out of water in 2018.
Housing Assembly chairperson Kashiefa Achmat says her members know what queuing for water, losing power, and waiting decades for a decent home feels like. 'Now a massive data center is trying to jump the queue and take our land, water and energy.'
Equinix says sustainable design is its starting point, not an afterthought. That still doesn't answer the practical question: water used by the facility is water residents don't get.
Kenya is pushing back too
Near Nairobi, a 1-gigawatt data center is planned by UAE-backed G42 and Microsoft. Residents say nobody told them what the project would do. It stalled in May, partly over its power needs.
Daniel Kammen, a professor at Johns Hopkins, says these companies like to cut sweetheart deals with governments. Secrecy is the norm.
Africa still needs data centers, though
Africa has about 409 megawatts of operating data center capacity — under 1% of the world's, for a fifth of its people. Obinna Isiadinso of the International Finance Corporation says reaching 1 gigawatt could cost up to $8 billion, and even then Africa would trail India and Malaysia.
A researcher advising the US Congress on AI says he doesn't oppose building data centers. He opposes building them without limits, at the expense of the people living nearby.
In one line: to use AI, someone first has to agree to hand over their water.
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