Exclusive: Mayors forge global partnership on AI and sustainability
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Illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios
The mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, are leading a global commitment with eight other mayors to ensure that companies build AI systems more sustainably.
Why it matters: Mayors are on the front lines of the global data center boom. They respond to residents' concerns, rising energy prices, water management issues and other infrastructure demands.
Driving the news: The mayors represented have committed to four principles for more responsible data infrastructure.
- They include agreeing on shared guidelines for lower-carbon and water-efficient systems and coordinating dialogue among stakeholders.
"Mayors deliver key infrastructure," said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego in an exclusive interview with Axios.
- "Many of us are in charge of the water systems, and cities are responsible for doing land patterns. Do we put data centers near other companies that can use the waste heat, or do we put the heat into our communities? These are often local decisions."
- Other cities in the partnership, all part of a broader global mayors' group on climate, include Athens, Greece; Barcelona, Spain; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Johannesburg; Milan; Paris; Portland, Ore.; and Hobart, Australia.
Follow the money: "We are seeing much more international private equity investment into this sector than we have in other areas of Phoenix," Gallego said.
- "So it's important to have global conversations since this investment is very much global."
The big picture: We are at the dawn of a boom in data centers, and areas like Phoenix — with low energy costs and few natural disasters — are one of the country's top markets.
- Cities are also at the leading edge of a NIMBYism fight over communities resisting data centers.
Zoom in: As leader of a desert city with a growing population, Gallego said water usage — on top of electricity prices — is a big concern.
- It's a key reason she is pushing for renewable energy, which uses far less water than natural gas.
"Right now, the amount of water that is going to natural gas plants to support energy for data centers is growing at an unprecedented rate," she said.
- Using renewable energy, she said, "can really change the equation for us in terms of how water-intensive these products are."
Behind the scenes: Gallego said some data center developers don't want to reveal where they get their energy: "We are concerned when they don't want to disclose the power source, that it's diesel."
Reality check: Mayors are on the front lines, but they're also confined by any state and federal laws that may have larger impacts on data centers and the energy they consume.
Zoom out: Gallego, talking from Phoenix, referenced how AI and energy have entered the conversations at the UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil.
- "So much of the world economy is focused on AI," she said. "We have to get it right for our communities."
What's next: One of the new partnership's first acts is to bring together "some of the larger funds that are investing globally in data centers," Gallego said.
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