EXCLUSIVE Google invited residents living near its newly built datacenter north of London to meet the team at the local council offices on Wednesday evening – and was met with a barrage of complaints about poor consultation, noise, and light pollution. The Waltham Cross Datacenter (WXT), which was officially opened last year, sits on a 33-acre (133,546 m²) site north of the M25 motorway that encircles London. It is expected to provide up to 77 MW of IT capacity when full, but it is currently nowhere near this level, according to Google. Given the site is now operational, the event was intended to introduce the team managing what Google touts as the cloud and search giant's first UK-owned and operated facility. But in somewhat shambolic and often rowdy proceedings, it was clear that some residents were not happy with the datacenter on their doorstep, and many had misgivings about the effect it may have on their area. One complaint raised several times was that locals felt there had been poor communication about the project, and that they had not been sufficiently consulted about it before approval was granted for construction to go ahead. This was directed at representatives present from the local Broxbourne Borough Council as much as Google, with one resident claiming: "We haven't had the opportunity to object," and "if you'd listened to people, we wouldn't be here right now." The council and Google maintain that all proper procedures were followed. It is understood that a planning application for a datacenter on the land was filed as far back as 2018, but that was before Google acquired the land for £33 million ($44 million) in 2020. The final reserved-matters application was approved on November 30, 2023. However, one attendee at the meeting offered his opinion that "the council didn't maybe advertise the consultation process vigorously," adding: "I don't think anything was done effectively. If you're working in planning, you would have planned this better." As one of the council representatives revealed that only 12 people showed up to the previous public meeting regarding the Waltham Cross facility, perhaps the locals have a point about poor communication. Another complaint was about noise, with one resident saying they could hear a distinct hum coming from the site, particularly in the evening. Others agreed, and it seems to be a common issue with datacenter sites around the world, with cooling infrastructure often blamed. Also earning the ire of people in the packed room at Broxbourne Council Offices was the lighting, which one local said was shining right into their bedrooms all night. Again, this is a recognized downside for people living close to bit barn facilities. Dan Dale, server operations site manager for Google, explained that the company was in the midst of certain projects related to lighting, "so that they won't be on all the time. They will be on when needed and when access is required." Dale said he expects the situation to improve and Google had tried to angle lighting down as much as possible at the site. One attendee asked about effects on the environment, particularly heat from the datacenter. A University of Cambridge-led preprint earlier this year claimed that datacenters create heat islands, raising surrounding temperatures by several degrees at distances up to 10 km (over 6 miles). Had there been an environmental impact study? Yes, that was submitted as part of the planning application. "We are constantly monitored to make sure that we are in line with environmental permits and that we do meet what we set out to meet in the very beginning," Dale said. With parts of southern, central, and eastern England close to drought conditions this summer, water consumption is on many people's minds. Google's datacenter team were clearly prepared for this one, and came ready with slides detailing the new facility's closed-loop chiller system, which they insisted means that "water consumption is not a concern." "So, with our datacenter, what we have is a closed-loop cooling," explained Tihomir Lazic, DCOps site manager. "It's a system of cooling where we have a loop of water pipes which run the same amount of water around. The cooling is provided by chillers, so we have big refrigerant machines, basically that chill the water, and it's in a continuous loop, so we don't add water in the system." Dale said water consumption at the site is largely due to the office space there, and put a figure to it of about 60 cubic meters per month, claiming this is the equivalent of about five houses. But the concerns kept coming thick and fast, with the Googlers at times struggling to make themselves heard over the hubbub of multiple residents talking loudly at the same time. Some questions demonstrated the level of mistrust that ordinary people now have about datacenters and the megacorps that operate them. One local asked if there was any danger from radiation, and another if there were high levels of electromagnetic emissions from the site. Others questioned why Google has been allowed to site a massive server farm in an urban area in the UK, when in America, "they build them out in the Utah desert and that sort of thing." One man insisted the presence of the Waltham Cross datacenter was already affecting house prices, and asked if Google was prepared to buy his house off him so he could move somewhere else. Throughout all this, the datacenter team gamely tried to talk up their work with community partners to bring benefits to the area, but the residents did not seem in a mood to hear it. Google's team promised further meetings with the residents and better communication. They can at least take comfort in not being in America, where gunshots were fired at the home of an Indianapolis councilor over his support for a local datacenter project, or in the Netherlands, where activists recently threw balloons containing an acidic mixture at a facility there. The Register asked Google and Broxbourne Borough Council to comment on the concerns residents raised at the meeting. A Google spokesperson said public consultation took place before Broxbourne Council granted planning permission, while engagement with the nearest neighbors and the local authority continued throughout construction. "We're committed to ongoing dialogue with residents and community leaders to address concerns and foster a positive relationship," the spokesperson said. On water use, Google said the facility relies on air-based cooling, meaning consumption is largely limited to domestic uses such as toilets and showers, as well as fire protection systems. The company said it considers local water risk, geography, energy use, and emissions when selecting cooling systems for its campuses. Google also pointed to its agreement with Shell to support grid stability and add clean power to the UK grid, claiming its UK operations are projected to run at or near 95 percent carbon-free energy in 2026. Broxbourne Borough Council had not responded by the time of publication. ®

The UK government's blueprint for turning Britain into an AI superpower largely ignore the water datacenters need, prompting warnings that these facilities could end up competing with homes and businesses for supply. The warning comes as parts of southern, central, and eastern England move closer to drought, putting the pressure on water availability firmly on the agenda. MPs were told earlier this year that official forecasts of England's future water needs excluded datacenters, despite government efforts to encourage more of them to power AI development. In written evidence to a parliamentary committee, Water UK, the trade association for Britain's water industry, said the government's policies for delivering AI Growth Zones under the AI Opportunities Action Plan appear to assume the country will have ample supplies of H₂O. This, Water UK argues, limits the investment that water companies can plan for, including new reservoirs, leaving future supply constrained by forecasts that it says are already too low. The submission claims some housing projects are already being blocked and businesses barred from expanding because water isn't available. Water UK says supply is so constrained that the Environment Agency has effectively imposed a moratorium on business expansion in East Anglia and parts of Essex. Water UK is calling for new supply infrastructure to be fast-tracked and abstraction limits to be reviewed. It also wants operators to cover the infrastructure costs their facilities create, minimum efficiency standards for server farms, and requirements to use non-potable water wherever possible. Current economics push operators toward cooling methods that save energy rather than water. Where water is relatively cheap compared to energy, operators favour using more of it to use less power, as The Register previously detailed. UK energy prices are among the highest in the developed world. The submission says global datcenter water use is expected to more than double between 2025 and 2050, with services-based economies like the UK likely to account for a disproportionate share of that growth. T he UK datacenter pipeline is almost double that of the next-largest country in Europe, with ambitions to treble capacity by 2030. A government report [PDF] says most of the UK's current datacenter capacity is sited in and around London, with more than 1,000 MW located there. Europe's largest datacenter cluster is reportedly in Slough, Berkshire, home to as many as 35 facilities. The same report notes UK datacenter operators aren't required to report water use, so no official consumption figures exist, though the Water Research Centre estimates English facilities use almost 1.9 billion liters a year. According to PublicTechnology, the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance warned last year that AI is driving a significant, yet often underestimated, rise in water consumption, threatening water security both globally and in the UK A Water UK spokesperson told The Register: "We desperately want to supply the water that datacenters need. That's impossible because the UK government explicitly excludes them from its water planning framework for England." Water companies have been given approval to build ten reservoirs, but they will take years to complete, the spokesperson added. "We need planning hurdles cleared and water efficiency standards for datacenters introduced. Major businesses should pay for the water infrastructure they need so that the costs don't fall onto households." The Register also asked the relevant government department for comment, but had not received a response by the time of publication. ®

Amazon Web Services is facing a lawsuit alleging it published false and misleading statements about the water use and sustainability of its Northern Virginia datacenters, "falsely" portraying those operations as environmentally responsible. The complaint, case number CL26002535-00 filed with the Circuit Court of Arlington County last week, seen by The Register, states that AWS has never publicly disclosed its actual water consumption in the region, known as the world's "datacenter capital." Despite this, the filing says, AWS has repeatedly published assertions regarding its water use and sustainability credentials that the suit alleges to be false, misleading, or unsubstantiated. By doing so, it has hidden the true scale of its water consumption, preventing policymakers and the public from independently assessing the accuracy of its claims, the complaint adds. The named plaintiff in this case is Dr Nathan Wangusi, a water resources scientist who served as the water sustainability program manager at AWS for almost three years until September 2024. The lawsuit says Dr Wangusi obtained detailed billing and water consumption records for AWS facilities in Northern Virginia using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests sent to water utilities in the region covering 2023 through 2026. The US's Freedom of Information Act gives any person – a private citizen, a foreign national, or a corporation – the statutory right to request access to federal agency records. The lawsuit claims that these FOIA records "materially differ" from the publicly reported water use figures disclosed by AWS. In particular, the complaint pours cold water – pun intended – on some assertions AWS made in a blog post last month, and covered by The Register at the time. For example, AWS said that in Northern Virginia, it had "dropped water use by 42 percent year-over-year, even as demand for computing continued to grow." AWS, however, did not disclose the comparison period, reporting boundary, or methodology underlying that figure, making independent verification impossible, Dr Wangusi claims in the lawsuit. The complaint goes on to allege: In addition, the filing claims that AWS did not reveal whether its published water withdrawal figures apply only to its own datacenters, or whether they include colocation facilities in the region operated by Equinix, QTS, Digital Realty, and Iron Mountain, where AWS also has infrastructure deployed. Liquid courage The complaint also questions AWS's statement that it is "75 percent of the way to water positive." In Northern Virginia, where AWS made the water positive commitment, the lawsuit claims that FOIA data and Amazon's own portfolio show returns covering 22 to 25 percent of documented consumption. The plaintiff alleges that, by contrast, the 75 percent figure is a global metric that counts 17 projects still under construction. Another representation Dr Wangusi alleges is misleading is a claim that AWS datacenters in Northern Virginia operate "ninety-seven percent of the year by pulling outside air and not using any water." In contrast, or so the lawsuit states, the utility records all show AWS facilities withdrawing water all year round, from January 2023 to December 2026, including the winter months when AWS says that water cooling is largely unnecessary. Datacenter lobbying group Virginia Connects is named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit. The complaint claims the outfit, which promotes datacenter benefits to Virginia stakeholders, conducted a coordinated video advertising campaign on the same date that AWS published its "42 percent reduction" claim, promoting many of the same narratives that the complaint is characterizing as "false". Dr Wangusi claims Virginia Connects is controlled by the same individuals who govern the Data Center Coalition (DCC) trade association, of which AWS is an Executive Member, and alleges that the so-called "coordinated" campaign constitutes conspiracy to commit deceptive trade practices under Virginia law. According to the lawsuit, the legal case was filed after Dr Wangusi found no state agencies were willing to take action over discrepancies he saw in AWS’s self-reported water use and its actual recorded consumption. The complaint claims neither the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), "the State Water Control Board, local water utilities, nor affected communities possess authority to independently determine whether AWS's public water-use, water-positive, replenishment, water-stewardship, and sustainability representations are accurate, misleading, or substantiated." The filing claims Dr Wangusi submitted a complaint to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which responded that Virginia law does not require datacenters to report water withdrawals to it, and that it lacks authority to independently verify usage. A complaint to the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia resulted in a referral back to DEQ, the lawsuit states. The filing – which includes Dr Wangusi's correspondence with the agencies attached as exhibits – added that the "FOIA Advisory Council likewise advised that factual disputes concerning public disclosures are matters reserved to the courts. Accordingly, Plaintiff exhausted all available administrative remedies before filing this action." Dr Wangusi is seeking a jury trial for the case, and wants the court to rule that the published water use, and sustainability claims are materially false or misleading, and order AWS to submit to the Virginia State Water Control Board and DEQ a complete accounting of its Northern Virginia water withdrawals. If the judgement goes against it, AWS would also be required to publish corrective disclosures within 30 days of judgment, disclosing its actual water consumption figures, the methodologies, and the supporting data underlying its claims. "Hyperscalers, including AWS and its competitors, continue to face public scrutiny over the integrity of their claims around environmental impact and resource usage for datacenters,” Omdia senior analyst for Sustainable Ecosystems, Ben Caddy told The Register. “Without stricter obligations for hyperscalers to be transparent about their resource use at a facility-specific level, it’s likely that these companies will continue to face more legal and reputational challenges about the local and global environmental impacts of their facilities,” he added. We asked Amazon for a statement regarding this lawsuit, but the corporation declined to comment, other than to insist its water replenishment and withdrawal data for 2025 were assured by a third-party provider. ®

IBM says customers spooked by soaring demand for AI infrastructure raided their mainframe budgets to stockpile servers, storage, and memory instead, knocking Big Blue's flagship Z business off course. Ahead of its full calendar Q2 earnings release next week, IBM took the unusual step of publishing preliminary quarterly results alongside a letter from CEO Arvind Krishna explaining why the numbers fell short of expectations. The biggest disappointment came in Infrastructure, where revenue fell 7 percent, despite what IBM had previously described as the strongest launch of a mainframe generation in its history. The disclosure led to a more-than 25 percent plunge in Big Blue's share price on Tuesday. The Q2 culprit wasn't a sudden loss of affection for mainframes, according to Krishna, but a last-minute scramble to secure hardware increasingly caught up in the AI spending boom. "In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases," Krishna wrote. "This dynamic impacted client buying patterns." IBM had expected some disruption from supply chain pressures, he said, "but we did not anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritization." That's an unusually candid admission from a company whose Z mainframes remain one of its highest-margin businesses. Customers, it seems, preferred to refresh infrastructure they fear might soon become more expensive or harder to obtain. The spending shift also rippled through IBM's software business because fewer mainframe deals meant weaker sales of the transaction-processing software that typically accompanies them. Krishna pointed to another factor as well, saying clients were distracted by "rapidly evolving, industry-wide cybersecurity concerns" during the quarter, though he offered no further details on what those concerns were or how they affected purchasing decisions. IBM was willing to shoulder some of the blame. "These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered," Krishna wrote. "We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall." Not everything disappointed. Red Hat revenue grew 11 percent, recent acquisitions including HashiCorp and Confluent performed strongly, and IBM's Distributed Infrastructure business posted record reported growth of 37 percent, driven by Power servers and storage systems. Still, the quarter offers another sign of how the AI infrastructure race is reshaping enterprise IT budgets. For at least one quarter, customers decided the safest investment wasn't the newest mainframe – it was buying as much in-demand hardware as possible before someone else did. ®