Is A.I. Development Sustainable? Data Center Problems in the U.S. and Brazil

The A.I. industry’s rapid growth depends on data centers that place mounting demands on energy, water, and land. As Brazil and the United States confront consequential, polarized elections, their debates about data centers have diverged sharply. In the U.S., environmental movements have aligned with tidal waves of local opposition, leading many to celebrate the bipartisan resistance to data centers’ unchecked proliferation. But in Brazil, where environmental regulations are stronger, both leading presidential candidates promise rapid data center construction in the name of “digital sovereignty,” facing less public outrage. Is Brazil a success story, showing that environmental protections and a clean, renewable energy mix make data centers a relative “non-problem”? Can Americans’ opposition to data centers lead to a sustainable approach to A.I. development? This comparison cautions against simple yes or no answers to either question. A study of policy evolution in both contexts reveals that determining whether A.I. infrastructure is sustainable is not simply a technical matter (i.e. getting the environmental safeguards or energy mix right) but a political one, as data centers are enrolled in wider societal debates about how development’s benefits, harms, and responsibilities are measured and distributed. In other words, in practice, the sustainability of data centers is evaluated alongside­—and inseparable from—their emerging political connotations. Nicole West Bassoff is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia's Karsh Institute of Democracy. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University, where she specialized in Science, Technology and Policy Studies, along with Master's and undergraduate degrees in History of Science from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, respectively. Her research examines the shifting boundary between public and private responsibility amid digital transformation, asking how communities, institutions, and governments renegotiate the terms of sovereignty and citizenship when new technologies unsettle existing political orders. She is currently completing a book manuscript, The Urban Social Compact in the Digital Age, and has published in Science, Technology & Human Values and The Conversation.