Community data centers – Towards locally owned infrastructures for an equitable and sustainable digital future

Data centers consume a lot of energy, materials and water. They create heat and noise pollution, are intransparent and their revenue primarily benefits powerful tech companies. Yet, the modern internet as we know and love it today, needs data centers to render many of our favorite platforms, apps, games and chatbots.  

Developments in AI, which require even more computational resources have spurred the growth of the data center industry, increasing our reliance on them but also intensifying their negative externalities. We think this issue deserves a lot more attention and action than it’s currently getting! 

In this panel we explore practical approaches to redistribute power and rewards derived from user data; benefiting local communities and users as much as businesses. Specifically we will discuss what citizen owned data centers might look like, how to care for them; informed by historical learnings and future imaginaries with a focus on practical strategies to make them a reality.

This programme session is supported by Stiftung Mercator. / Dieser Programmpunkt wird durch die Stiftung Mercator unterstützt.