Data centers drive up electricity and water costs, from New York to Cape Town
The AI-driven build-out of data centers is pushing up electricity and water costs worldwide. In the United States, consumers in 13 states are to pay billions extra, while Cape Town is approving two huge, water- and energy-hungry data centers.
That data centers strain infrastructure is the common denominator of the reports; the political interpretation diverges. The left-liberal New York Times calculates that a power auction by the grid operator PJM burdens consumers and businesses in 13 states with an additional 6.3 billion dollars, costs of the data-center hunger that are passed on to the public. The conservative Wall Street Journal turns the question of blame around and, in a commentary, lambasts New York's "self-sabotage," whose policies obstruct the construction of data centers. South Africa's Daily Maverick shows the global dimension: in Cape Town, two enormous, "water- and energy-hungry" data centers have cleared a first approval hurdle, accompanied by concerns about scarce resources. The worldwide rising resource consumption of AI infrastructure is a fact; what is contested is whether the answer must be stricter regulation and cost-sharing by the operators, or a removal of construction hurdles.