Today a rally was held at Hamilton city hall in response to a proposed data centre in Hamilton’s industrial area.
The data centre is part of a much bigger redevelopment of the former Stelco lands on Hamilton’s waterfront, being managed by Slate Asset Management. Not too much is known about the data centre(s) yet – potentially, this could be referring to a proposed AI-driven supercomputer that will supposedly be used for academic research, and could also include a much larger hyperscale data centre on the same site. What’s known so far is mostly based on Slate’s limited communication about the project, and from information gathered on Slate’s energy connection requests to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator.
The rally today was tied an application in front of the Committee of Adjustment to separate a parcel of land for the data centre from the rest of the site. And because there’s no formal process for consultation around any of this, people saw it as their chance to make their voices heard.
We decided it would be worth throwing our two cents in as well, although not through a deputation at the Committee of Adjustment – so we wrote up a leaflet and circulated it at the rally. It read:
“Not here, not anywhere: Against AI and its world
It’s not about the Stelco site. We oppose the proposed data centre in Hamilton because it’s a local manifestation of a much larger process that’s taking place.
We oppose Steelport’s data centre as part of a trend that is seeing 15 new or expanded hyperscale data centres currently proposed in Ontario. We see the push for new data centres as part of a justification for the massive expansion in Ontario’s energy grid, mostly powered by nuclear energy. And we can’t separate this from the new nuclear waste dump being opened in Northern Ontario.
We oppose this process of of ecological devastation and social control on every level.
Even made-in-Canada AI will steal your job, be used by the military and police, and make all our lives worse. AI expansion is bullshit and we don’t accept its invasion into our lives or its inevitability.
When this project gets approved in spite of public feedback, what will you do?
When we are promised a greener, more responsible data centre, what will you do?
For a self-organized struggle against AI everywhere.”
From some initial responses to the leaflet, it’s not clear whether our message landed, but hopefully some conversations and time to think about it will help it sink in. In some conversations, people hedged “it’s not that I’m against technology or anything…” (it’s always fun to reply, “well I am”). In others, it felt clear that people are motivated by an underlying disgust with AI, but that it feels more strategic, or reasonable or something, to focus the fight narrowly on this site.
But what would winning in this context really mean? If the project is shut down by city hall and moves on to another site, have we gotten any closer to the world we really want? For us, struggling against a data centre is as much (or more) about sharpening our ideas and spreading practices of self-organization and direct action as it is about stopping a given project. There will always be another terrible project that follows, and it’s by being clear and uncompromising that we build the capacity to fight effectively and on our own terms.
And yes, data centres consistently make things worse for the people living around them, but as far as sites go, this one is honestly kind of ideal – it’s an industrial wasteland sitting next to one of the most polluted parts of the whole Great Lakes. We’ve already created a devastated hellworld. Let’s dream a little bigger, say what we mean, and take part in a struggle that’s worth winning.