My latest reporting for Computer Weekly
In part two of a two-part series looking at attitudes to datacentres, we look at how developers and operators have responded to the wave of anti-datacentre sentiment sweeping through communities and what their plan is to avoid further escalation
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), it is all about the tokens, which are the basic units of AI. They’re the way large language models (LLMs) – the core of AI and therefore behind much recent datacentre expansion – measure inputs and their responses, with their cost measured in fractions of a dollar.
But “token” is also how many datacentre campaigners would characterise the industry’s record stance on community engagement and sustainability. If the industry is to avoid escalation and impacts from protests on build-times and project viability, experts agree there needs to be a shift from a perception of tokenism to a community and socially focused stance.
In part one of this series, we looked at the various groups, from global to grassroots, that actively campaign against datacentre development.
In part two, we look at the datacentre industry’s response to this backlash – namely, the operators, LLM labs, technology suppliers and numerous consultants and other constituents of the supply chain that are almost singularly focused on speed, scale and performance.
For more, head to Computer Weekly.
