Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated, the C40 Cities alliance said.
It’s their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities’ natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.
Many new data centers are coming to rural areas for cheap land. Experts at C40 said metropolitan areas are under tremendous pressure too, with about 1,700 data centers located in their network of cities so far. Development of data centers is expected to grow by over 40% in 50 of those cities.
C40 got involved because the mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, came together over worries about data centers using a lot of their cities’ electricity and water, and competing with housing developers for available land, the alliance said.
The pact comes amid a wave of local government actions across the United States to slow or halt data center construction. MSI previously reported that Seattle enacted a year-long ban on new AI data centers in June, and that New York lawmakers approved a one-year ban on large data centers the same week. Monterey Park, California, voted in early June to permanently ban data centers — a first for a U.S. city.