The small English town is caught up in the global AI arms race

Short drive From London, the town of Potters Bar is separated from the village of South Mimms by 85 acres of farmland divided by scribbles of bush. In a field, a lone oak tree serves as a rest stop along a public footpath. More recently, the tree has become a site of protest as well. There is a sticker taped to the trunk that says: “No to the data center.”

In September 2024, a property developer applied for permission to build an industrial-scale data center – one of the largest in Europe – on farmland. When local residents caught wind, they created a Facebook group in hopes of blocking the project. More than 1,000 people have registered.

The local government has so far rejected the group’s complaints. In January 2025, planning permission was granted. The following October, multinational data center operator Equinix acquired the land; Plans to start this year.

On a dreary Thursday afternoon in January, I huddled around a gate leading onto the farmland with Ross Naylor – one of the administrators of the Facebook group – and six other locals. They told me they object to the data center for various reasons, but especially to the loss of green space, which they see as an invaluable escape route from the city to the countryside and a barrier against the highway and gas station visible on the horizon. “The beauty of walking through this area comes through this space,” Naylor says. “It’s so important for mental health and well-being.”

As the UK government races to meet voracious demand for data centers that can be used to train AI models and run AI applications, similar massive facilities are set to be built across the country. However, for people living in close proximity, the prospect of AI boosting the economy or injecting new capabilities into their smartphones is little solace for what they see as a disruption to the rural way of life.

Red ribbon fire

Since the mid-20th century, London has been surrounded on all sides by a near-contiguous patch of land known as the Green Belt, consisting of farms, woods, meadows and parks. Under UK law, building on green belt land is only permitted in “very special circumstances”. The goal is to protect rural areas from urban sprawl and prevent neighboring towns from coalescing into an amorphous bubble.

However, after the current government came to power in 2024, the UK introduced a new land classification – Gray Belt – to describe poorly performing Green Belt plots on which building should be allowed more easily. Around the same time, the government announced that it would treat data centers as “critical national infrastructure.” Together, these changes have paved the way for the construction of a host of new data centers across the UK.

In their attempt to develop models capable of surpassing human intelligence, the world’s largest AI labs plan to spend trillions of dollars in total on infrastructure. Around the world, wherever new data centers are built, developers face organized resistance from affected communities.

When the local planning authority approved the Potters Bar data centre, its officials concluded that the farmland met the definition of a gray belt. They also said their decision was colored by the government’s support for the data center industry. They concluded that the benefits from infrastructure development and economic perspective outweigh the loss of green spaces.

“People have a somewhat romantic idea that all Green Belt land is made up of rolling green fields,” says Jeremy Newmark, leader of Hertsmere Borough Council, the constituency that includes Potters Bar. “The reality is that this site, along with many others, is just that.” “It is a piece of green belt land that is very underperforming.”