As AI guzzles water and energy, we are already facing a choice: datacentres or homes? | John Harris

Whitehall wants to triple their number in the UK. Yet in Slough, I saw the impact they’re having on communities Amid 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

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ethics.ai (9 August 2026), “As AI guzzles water and energy, we are already facing a choice: datacentres or homes? | John Harris,” evidence record 17784, https://ethics.ai/record/17784 (originally published by The Guardian).

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