Federal and provincial ministries have announced plans for two AI data centres in Vancouver: Downtown and Mount Pleasant, two major sites of tenant activism, Indigenous activism, and conflict with developers.
These data centres have a tremendous environmental cost due to massive use of fresh water as well as emerging concerns of pollution and human disease. That this project was announced at the same time as Metro Vancouver was placed under stage-2 water restrictions (since escalated to stage-3) is especially illustrative of the priorities of these industries and their governing advocates. One centre is estimated to waste between 55,000 – 70,000 litres per day as residents face water restrictions and fines for excessive plant irrigation.
The proposed Mount Pleasant Industrial Area is meant to protect industrial land, and thus protect jobs. The proposed rezoning developments are set to displace low-income, elderly, and Indigenous residents and replace affordable low-rises with a 40-story extended-stay hotel (to recruit “tech nomads”, which should raise alarm bells for anyone hopeful for a rise in well-paying jobs available to local residents).
Of course, the data is also being touted as a job creator and a wealth creator. But, what jobs do these centres create? Watching for layoffs in the US tech sector, one can assume they will be temporary, which brings to mind a recurring pattern in Canadian extraction industries: massive infrastructures rushed in without public consent, Indigenous consultation, or environmental assessment; funded through tax-revenue; creating a small number of temporary jobs and enriching foreign investors who are insufficiently taxed.
As the Carney government commits to record defunding of all public sectors, the newly established Ministry of Artificial Intelligence has committed $925.6 million “to support large-scale, sovereign AI infrastructure, which includes data centres”.
What work will these centres do?
We have seen AI rolled out as a consumer technology to mixed reactions and levels of adoption; at best we see assistive technology and live-translation that is genuinely helpful, but not distinct from existing software. At worst, cottage industries of revenge-porn and patterns of accelerated radicalization and delusional thinking.
Of course, the biggest concerns lay with the systemic adoption of AI. Threatening workers with automation is by no means a new employer tactic; but the threat to automate intellectual and analytic human input has brought a new subset of workers into the precariat class.
However, it is the use of AI in surveillance that may present the largest threat; particularly in our current context of FIFA-washed speech and assemblage restrictions, Bill C22’s proposal to mandate data collection, and plans for a new US DEA office in Vancouver at a time where “narcoterrorism” has entered the popular vernacular of a resurgent “War on Terror” (including the abduction of Venezuela’s president Nicholas Maduro).
What can we do?
Mass opposition, when organized into mass activity, can make the government think twice about building data centres. In Hamilton, massive protests against a proposed data centre forced a municipal planning tribunal to deny Slate Asset Management’s (the company behind the proposal) request to split a plot of land it owns in order to build the centre. Tribunal member Robert Reid admitted that although the request met legal requirements, the outpouring of opposition from residents forced him to deny the request.
AI and data centres are not a foregone conclusion, but only if we keep fighting against them. No AI Vancouver has seen an outpouring of support, with hundreds in attendance at a protest in May and a large turnout expected for demonstrations on June 27. Sign the petition against the proposed Vancouver data centre, and contact your local government officials to voice your opposition. Together, we can protect the environment and each other.
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