The Small English Town Swept Up within the Global AI Arms Race | EUROtoday

A brief drive from London, the city of Potters Bar is separated from the village of South Mimms by 85 acres of rolling farmland segmented by a scribble of hedgerows. In one of many fields, a lone oak serves as a relaxation cease alongside a public footpath. Lately, the tree has turn into a web site of protest, too. A poster tied to its trunk reads: “NO TO DATA CENTRE.”

In September 2024, a property developer utilized for permission to construct an industrial-scale knowledge middle—one of many largest in Europe—on the farmland. When locals caught wind, they began a Facebook group in hopes of blocking the venture. More than 1,000 individuals signed up.

The native authorities has thus far dismissed the group’s complaints. In January 2025, it granted planning permission. The following October, multinational datacenter operator Equinix acquired the land; it intends to interrupt floor this yr.

On a dismal Thursday afternoon in January, I huddled round a gate main onto the farmland with Ros Naylor—one of many Facebook group’s admins—and 6 different native residents. They instructed me that they object to the info middle on varied grounds, however significantly to the lack of inexperienced area, which they see as a useful escape route from city to countryside and buffer in opposition to the freeway and gas cease seen on the horizon. “The beauty of walking in this area is coming through this space,” says Naylor. “It’s incredibly important for mental health and wellbeing.”

As the UK authorities races to fulfill the voracious demand for knowledge facilities that can be utilized to coach AI fashions and run AI functions, equally massive amenities stand to be constructed throughout the nation. For the individuals who dwell in closest proximity, although, the prospect that AI may buoy the financial system or infuse new capabilities into their smartphone is skinny comfort for what they contemplate a disruption to a countryside lifestyle.

Bonfire of Red Tape

Since the mid-Twentieth century, London has been hemmed in on all sides by an almost contiguous patchwork of land referred to as the inexperienced belt, made up of farms, forest, meadows, and parks. Under UK regulation, building is simply permitted on inexperienced belt land in “very special circumstances.” The purpose is to guard areas of countryside from city encroachment and cease neighboring cities from melding into an amorphous blob.

After the current authorities got here to energy in 2024, nonetheless, the UK launched a brand new land classification—gray belt—to explain underperforming parcels of inexperienced belt on which building must be extra readily permitted. At across the similar time, the federal government introduced it could deal with knowledge facilities as “critical national infrastructure.” Together, these modifications have cleared the way in which for a raft of recent knowledge facilities to be constructed throughout the UK.

As they try and develop fashions able to surpassing human intelligence, the world’s largest AI labs are planning to spend trillions of {dollars} in mixture on infrastructure. Across the globe, wherever new knowledge facilities are being constructed, builders are encountering organized resistance from impacted communities.

When the native planning authority permitted the Potters Bar knowledge middle, its officers concluded that the farmland met the definition of gray belt. They additionally stated their determination was coloured by the federal government’s help for the info middle trade. The advantages from an infrastructure growth and financial standpoint, they concluded, outweighed the lack of inexperienced area.

“People have this slightly romantic idea that all green belt land comprises pristine, rolling green fields. The reality is that this site, along with many others, is anything but that,” says Jeremy Newmark, chief of Hertsmere Borough Council, the constituency that encompasses Potters Bar. “It’s a patch of very low-performing green belt land.”