Alan Weedon* warns that the need for ever more data could see data centres become the next big foe in future battles over urban space.
In the era of the “infinite scroll” where internet users can now swipe up on feeds seemingly forever, people are being promised everything, everywhere, within a few flicks of the thumb.
To keep this running around the clock, the nebulous online “cloud” is rooted in data centres dotted around the world.
They house our Instagram uploads, streaming options, Google history, and the other bits of data that comprise our digital biographies.
In time, some predict these buildings might become the next big foe in future battles over urban space.
“The logic of supply and demand doesn’t drive the boom in data centres, it’s the logic of preparedness and redundancy,” Alexander Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University’s Department of Social Anthropology, told the ABC.
“For data centres themselves, or the tech industry especially, more of them are built to ensure that digital consumption doesn’t stop.”
‘Data centres are a bit like the case of McDonald’s’
There are over 6,000 data centres dotted around the globe, and this number is set to increase.
“They’re fundamental pieces of infrastructure on par with water and sanitation, and if affected, would bring down the normal operation of life,” said Michele Acuto, a Professor of global urban politics and Director of the Melbourne School of Design’s Connected Cities Lab.
The size of these data centres ranges from the small to the gargantuan.
While major tech players such as Google and Apple have data centres in deserts in addition to cities, most people are more likely to come across smaller scale data centres that are commonly known as co-location facilities as they house the data of multiple companies.
Professor Acuto said data centres often cluster in city centres with high real estate values, and if this continues, they may compete with inner urban public amenities such as libraries or community housing.
Sydney’s inner suburb of Alexandria may become an example of future battles over the ownership of our cities — the suburb is already home to four data centres on one street.
The suburb is a prime spot for data centres, given that it hosts one of the sites that connects Australia to the internet via the Southern Cross Cable network, which only touches the mainland at five points.
The post-industrial suburb is also slated as a major residential development site, with the City of Sydney investing $540 million over the next 10 years as part of its Green Square redevelopment, including a new public facilities and pockets of open public space.
Likewise, given that it is 4 km from Sydney’s CBD, Alexandria commands a median real estate price of $1.58 million.
“In Sydney’s case, some of its most fundamental strategic needs are mobility, housing and sustainability, and I fail to see how current data centres address them,” Professor Acuto said.
“But then again we need them as the infrastructure that powers our daily life.”
And as big tech companies continue to propel the design and construction of new data centres, Professor Acuto noted a historical example that urban planners can learn from.
“If you take Google, who have plans for a substantial number of data centres in the next couple of years, it’s a bit like the case of McDonald’s,” he said.
“So Google then becomes real estate-minded while working in the digital industry, which is a bit like how McDonald’s was predominantly a real estate business that catered to demands for fast food in the 1960s and 1970s.”
‘We’re not trained to think about the fundamental changes’
This year the construction market value of data centres is estimated to reach $32.17 billion, and private companies are racing to construct data centres to keep pace with the sheer amount of data uploaded to the internet.
It was estimated that, collectively, internet users generated 90 per cent of all data in human history between 2017 and 2018.
“We’re not yet trained to think about the fundamental changes that data will bring about to planning,” Professor Acuto said.
“If a third of all data will pass through the cloud [by 2020], then that’s one of the most fundamental questions of urban planning in this current time.”
But there isn’t a need to hit the panic button just yet, as there are some positive examples around the globe.
One best practice example Professor Acuto cited was Oslo’s Data Centre Location (DCLO) — a collaboration between the Oslo Business Region and the municipality of Ringerike, about an hour’s drive from Oslo.
“The reason why Oslo is a good example is because they looked at a non-central location for vital infrastructure that wouldn’t take the space of housing and public services,” he said.
Over 100 ha of vacant riverside land has been marked specifically for data centre construction there, in an area specifically selected to help with the sizeable energy and cooling demands of data centres.
Data centres account for 2 per cent of the world’s energy and emit about the same emissions as airlines annually, but because data centres need to keep the cloud running continuously, these centres need uninterrupted power and a stable climate.
Oslo DCLO will give businesses the option to have adjacent river water available for cooling at 1,000 L/s, in a region with an average annual temperature of 4º Celsius.
Planners have also guaranteed data centre providers a two-week turnaround for building permit approvals.
“It’s a great example of a well-thought through metropolitan-wide plan, where the Oslo Business Region had given quite serious political consideration to its data centres’ location,” said Professor Acuto.
The importance of getting ahead of digital disruption
Professor Acuto said the Oslo centre also had a decent amount of public consultation — an aspect of data centre planning that is lacking in the English-speaking world.
“You find this a lot in Australia and America where the conversation is very much post-facto, like the ones we’ve had about Uber and Airbnb — where the disruption happens and then we have a chat about it,” he said.
“Lots of conversation over in America is ‘Oh, I didn’t know that unused massive factory in the middle of downtown Baltimore was bought by Verizon and it’s now a massive data centre’.”
Much like the global connectedness of our predominantly online communication, cities around the world will continue to face larger questions about the implications data has on the physical manifestation of “the city”.
For Professor Acuto, it is a question governments the world over need to be taking seriously.
“Data centres bring up substantial questions about the strategic planning of major cities — so there is a question about whether the private control of these centres is dispossessing a holistic, well-thought-out planning of the city.”
* Alan Weedon is a journalist and producer with the ABC’s Asia Pacific Newsroom. He tweets at @_alanweedon.
This article first appeared at www.abc.net.au/.
