Cape Town’s Data Centre Fight Puts a Price on AI’s Thirst
Housing activists have appealed Cape Town's approval of a 174MW Equinix data centre, arguing that planners waved it through without data on water, power or emissions. The case is becoming a test of how African cities govern AI infrastructure.
A city that came close to turning off its taps in 2018 is now being asked how much water and electricity it is prepared to give to the machines behind artificial intelligence. On 14 September the Housing Assembly, a Cape Town social movement, and Foxglove, a technology-justice group, lodged an appeal against the city’s approval of a large data centre planned by Equinix, the American data-centre operator, according to GroundUp. Their lawyers at the Legal Resources Centre want the decision overturned.
What was approved
Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal approved the Equinix proposal on 14 July, with one member dissenting. The site is on land at the King David Golf Club, MyBroadband reported. The facility has been described as a 174MW campus, and estimates cited by MyBroadband and Rest of World put its water use at about 12 million litres a day, or roughly 4.4bn litres a year, which Rest of World likened to the consumption of 18,000 homes.
Equinix has disputed the worst-case framing of its power demand. In April it told Daily Maverick that a 160MW figure in its application represented a “maximum-case scenario” rather than committed capacity. GroundUp reports that the company has bought the land but has not yet submitted a site development plan, and that it has promised “full transparency and engagement” when it does.
Why the appeal matters
The objectors’ central complaint is about information rather than technology. Their appeal to the city’s Planning Appeals Authority argues that the tribunal approved the project without adequate evidence on its water use, emissions, electricity demand, air pollution and noise; that nearby communities, including Bishop Lavis, Gugulethu, KTC and the Barcelona informal settlement, were not properly consulted; and that the tribunal wrongly created a new “data centre” land-use category to accommodate it. They also argue that the project is incompatible with residents’ constitutional rights to a healthy environment and to water.
The dissenting tribunal member, Wally Johnstone, made a similar point at the July hearing. South Africans have endured years of load-shedding, he said, and “the public has a right to know how this approval will affect grid stability.”
The concern is not confined to one project. Daily Maverick reported in April that four proposed data centres in Cape Town, including Equinix’s, would together need about 580MW, equivalent to 34% of the city’s current peak demand of 1,676MW. A city official told the paper that such demand might be seen as a welcome reinvigoration of its electricity business, a reminder that municipalities have their own reasons to say yes.
When a city approves a data centre it is also deciding who queues for water and power in the next drought.
The wider stakes
Africa hosts less than 1% of the world’s data-centre capacity, according to figures cited by Rest of World, and governments across the continent are courting hyperscale investment as the foundation for local AI services. The Housing Assembly has gone further than the appeal, asking South Africa’s Human Rights Commission to investigate and calling for a national moratorium on hyperscale data centres. “Our members know what it is to queue for water, to go without electricity,” said Kashiefa Achmat, its chairperson.
The case lands in a policy vacuum. South Africa has no national AI policy: its first draft was withdrawn in April over fabricated citations, and a redraft is not due before Cabinet until March 2027, Daily Maverick reported. Until then, decisions about AI’s physical footprint are being made by municipal planning tribunals under rules written for shopping centres and warehouses.
For investors, the lesson is that social licence for AI infrastructure will be contested locally, and that disclosure on water and power is becoming a condition of approval rather than a courtesy. For governments, it is a prompt to set national standards for data-centre reporting before planning appeals set them instead.
Sources
- Activists appeal Cape Town data centre approval – GroundUp
- What happened in Cape Town this week – Foxglove
- Battle over data centres that will use 12 million litres of water per day in South Africa – MyBroadband
- South African civil rights groups fight Big Tech data centers – Rest of World
- New data centres set to swallow 34% of Cape Town’s current electricity supply – Daily Maverick
- Hallucination-free (hopefully) — new draft AI policy will be ready by March, says Malatsi – Daily Maverick
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