Everyone hates datacentres. Do we really need them? – podcast
AI companies have promised us world-shifting technology. But there’s a cost: loud, unsightly datacentres that drain environmental resources. As the government pushes their rapid growth, can local communities do anything to push back? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s global technology reporter Aisha Down about the backlash to datacentres across the UK and around the world For tickets to the Science Weekly liv
Open original article- Ledger record
- #3267
- First seen
- 27 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
- Last checked
- 27 Aug 2026, 09:16 UTC
- Version history
- 1 version
- Current fingerprint
a41bcb55b7d8...6dcce2
Publisher layer
Recorded article metadata
- Publisher
- The Guardian
- Country
- England / United Kingdom
- Source published
- 27 Aug 2026, 04:00 UTC
- Source updated
- No update timestamp supplied
- Byline
- Presented by Madeleine Finlay with Aisha Down; produced by Madeleine Finlay, Joshan Chana and Jacob Liebenberg; sound design by Joel Cox. The executive producer is Elizabeth Cassin
- Section
- Datacentres - UK
AI companies have promised us world-shifting technology. But there’s a cost: loud, unsightly datacentres that drain environmental resources. As the government pushes their rapid growth, can local communities do anything to push back? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s global technology reporter Aisha Down about the backlash to datacentres across the UK and around the world For tickets to the Science Weekly liv
Change layer
Observed version timeline
-
1
Everyone hates datacentres. Do we really need them? – podcast
AI companies have promised us world-shifting technology. But there’s a cost: loud, unsightly datacentres that drain environmental resources. As the government pushes their rapid growth, can local communities do anything to push back? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s global technology reporter Aisha Down about the backlash to datacentres across the UK and around the world For tickets to the Science Weekly liv
Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags- Version SHA-256
a41bcb55b7d8...6dcce2- Capture SHA-256
26061a1668c3...f27ecb
Interpretation layer
Labels with declared origins
Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.
- machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
- publisher category AI (artificial intelligence) rss-category
- publisher category Computing rss-category
- publisher category Datacentres rss-category
- publisher category Datacentres - UK rss-category
- publisher category Science rss-category
- publisher category Technology rss-category
Public response layer
Reception snapshots
Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.
Evidence layer
Capture provenance
- Capture ID
- #3004
- Observed
- 27 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
- HTTP result
- 200 / parsed
- Raw payload
- 482,126 bytes, private gzip evidence
- Collector
- news-ledger/0.1
- Public boundary
- metadata and excerpt