Labour rejects Green Party’s call to pause AI datacentre construction in Britain

Britain’s Green Party leader wants to pump the brakes on AI data centre construction. The Labour government essentially told him to keep dreaming. Zack Polanski, who leads the Green Party, called for a temporary moratorium on approvals for large data centres in England on August 27, arguing that the facilities are draining water and energy resources the country can barely spare. The Labour government fired back almost immediately, calling any such pause a disaster for the British economy. A country running dry Three-quarters of the UK was dealing with drought conditions when he made the announcement, turning what might otherwise sound like abstract environmental policy into something viscerally urgent. According to figures cited by the Greens, a single large facility can gulp down up to 1.5 million litres of water per day for cooling purposes alone. Polanski’s proposal would specifically target large-scale facilities, leaving smaller local projects untouched. He also took aim at data centres’ classification as “critical national infrastructure,” a designation that grants these facilities priority access to power and water. In his view, that status effectively lets tech companies cu...