Data center backlash spreads from the United States to Switzerland and Europe, Digi Mart USA News (Beringen, Schaffhausen canton, Switzerland): Accused of consuming enormous quantities of electricity and water, data centers have become a focal point of tension. In Beringen, in the canton of Schaffhausen, Greenpeace carried out an action on Friday, and citizens are also mobilizing.
Until recently, the movement was mainly observed in the United States. It now extends to Europe and Switzerland.
Opposition to data centers that run artificial intelligence (AI) systems is becoming global. Critics say these massive facilities consume vast amounts of electricity and water, require the extraction of rare earth elements for their computing equipment, increase the power of technology giants, and create very few jobs.
In the United States, this is possibly one of the reasons for the Republicans’ setback. In Switzerland, attention is focused on Beringen, a municipality of about 5,000 residents, where two large data centers are being built.
On Friday, Greenpeace activists staged a symbolic action there. They unfurled a 26-by-26-meter banner depicting Elon Musk, director of SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, with the slogan “Big Tech Bros suck: Our water, electricity, data,” which can be translated as “Tech barons are stealing our water, our electricity and our data.”
Greenpeace calls for an end to “the anarchic growth of these installations” and demands “national planning and regulation to ensure that data centers serve the general interest.”
