San Francisco Frontiers - On London's Brick Lane, a data centre sparks local battle

"This has really been the focal point of the British Bangladeshi community," local councillor Faysal Ahmed told AFP, recalling a time when his parents ran a restaurant beneath his childhood home in the Lane.

While many curry houses remain, the street and the surrounding neighbourhood is transforming, in part to help power the capital's digital infrastructure boom.

Part of a multi-million pound redevelopment of the sprawling former Truman brewery site, the East End financial data centre is an unlikely addition to the graffiti-lined Brick Lane, where tourists spill between vintage shops and queue for bagels served through the night.

The 10-acre site will also be transformed by new offices and retail space, primarily serving the neighbouring financial district filled with skyscrapers.

Approval of the development by the UK government comes as a boom in water- and energy-hungry data centres -- particularly as demand rises for facilities supporting artificial intelligence -- fuels local opposition worldwide.

For Ahmed, the development uses land that could help house some of the roughly 31,000 residents on the waiting list for social housing in the Tower Hamlets district.

The redevelopment plans are for only 44 flats, including just six for social housing, prompting residents to recently protest outside the Ministry of Housing.

- 'Preserving heritage' -

"My personal concern is about the need for affordable social housing for young people and preserving the heritage, the special character, of the area," said Susanna Kow, a member of the Save Brick Lane campaign.

According to planning documents, the Labour government gave "significant weight" to the benefits of additional data centre capacity, citing the need to "meet the escalating demand driving emerging technologies such as AI and increased digital services".

The government's housing department declined to comment on its decision in August to approve the plans, while the Truman Brewery has not responded to an AFP request for its reaction.

"We've been campaigning on planning issues and... the incursion of the city on the East End for quite a number of years," said Jonathan Moberly, who is leading local opposition.

He said the project was part of a "growing national issue about the amount of power taken from the grid that can stop other developments happening, like housing".

The International Energy Agency in April reported that the global electricity demand of data centres grew by 17 percent last year.

It projects electricity consumption from these centres will double over five years to 2030.

"The UK already faces a projected daily water deficit of nearly five billion litres by 2050," according to a report on the UK government website.

"National water resource plans... do not adequately account for the burgeoning demand from infrastructure such as AI data centres. This oversight risks intensifying water stress in already vulnerable regions."

- 'Trojan horse' -

For industry consultant Mark Acton, the infrastructure is increasingly essential, particularly in London, a city where proximity can provide the ultra-fast response times needed for financial trading.

"Everything we currently do digitally comes from a data centre," said Acton, who argued the facilities have become an easy target owing to what he said was a lack of understanding of their actual water and energy use.

If Britain is serious about sovereignty over its AI infrastructure, "you've got to have somewhere to put it", Acton said.

But campaigners at environmental charity Global Action Plan argue that UK planning rules have not kept pace with the expansion of the sector or adequately accounted for environmental costs.

"It's been a kind of Trojan horse for bad development," Owen Espley, the group's community campaigns manager, told AFP.

"We need local knowledge and input to go into shaping developments to improve them and make sure that we get better data centres at the end of it," he said.

Further down Brick Lane, Carol Burns, born and raised in the area, has no intention of going anywhere.

Sitting inside the shop her family has run since the 1800s -- its walls covered with family photographs -- Burns is proud to be part of London's East End community.

"People are always trying to buy this place, but no. They'll have to drag me out of here feet-first," she said in her thick Cockney accent.

E.Jones--SFF