As AI guzzles water and energy, we are already facing a choice: datacentres or homes? | John Harris
Why This Matters
Key context: <p>Whitehall wants to triple their number in the UK. Yet in Slough, I saw the impact they’re having on communities</p><p>Amid headlines about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/03/july-driest-month-southern-england-since-records-began">the UK’s drought</a>, Europe’s wildfires and impossible global temperatures, it was 28C when I arrived in Slough last Monday. I was there to look around Slough Trading Estate, a place that might once have conjured up images of the TV comedy <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yz7n1kgd9o">The Office</a>, many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd miles west of London.</p><p>But these days, this area of town – an incongruous mixture of old-school businesses such as Mr Clutch and Angling Direct, and vast, metal-clad leviathans that look like something pulled from JG Ballard – has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyrl7nlnkjpo">become a byword</a> for the constant expansion of datacentres, those hulking symbols of the vast computing power that big tech now requires, not least because of the ever-more complex workings of artificial intelligence.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/09/slough-famous-the-office-datacentres-locals-hub-europe">Continue reading...</a> This development from The Guardian highlights ongoing changes in the sector.
Whitehall wants to triple their number in the UK. Yet in Slough, I saw the impact they’re having on communitiesAmid headlines about the UK’s drought, Europe’s wildfires and impossible global temperatures, it was 28C when I arrived in Slough last Monday. I was there to look around Slough Trading Estate, a place that might once have conjured up images of the TV comedy The Office, many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd miles west of London.But these days, this area of town – an incongruous mixture of old-school businesses such as Mr Clutch and Angling Direct, and vast, metal-clad leviathans that look like something pulled from JG Ballard – has become a byword for the constant expansion of datacentres, those hulking symbols of the vast computing power that big tech now requires, not least because of the ever-more complex workings of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
Curation & Context
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