Yanshanying Town (detail)
Inner Mongolia, China

A surge in global use of ‘Cloud’ storage, social media, streaming and, not least, AI has led to unprecedented growth in data centres across the world. These particularly proliferate in countries with access to the cheapest electricity, for example, the USA and China, and are often fuelled by the dirtiest fossil fuels.
Inner Mongolia is a key data centre hub in China. The largest data centre in the world is Inner Mongolia Information Park, a complex of 100 hectares which consumes 150 megawatts of electricity per hour.
Experts estimate that data centres are on course to consume at least 3% of the world’s total annual energy consumption by 2030.
Water use is also very high: data centres could consume 6.4 trillion litres annually by 2027.

Approx area depicted: 12 km2
Date of image: 2021