South Africa wants to be Africa's data hub. Civil rights groups want it to slow down first. They are calling for a halt to new data centre construction until the facilities' use of scarce water, land and electricity has been investigated, the Associated Press reports.
What the commission is looking at
The South African Human Rights Commission is examining whether the country's rules match its human rights obligations. Its early finding is about missing information: "A key issue emerging from the process is precisely the availability, consistency and transparency of information relating to matters such as electricity and water demand, land use, infrastructure requirements, environmental impacts and impacts on surrounding communities," said Dr Eileen Carter, who leads the process, according to AP.
Why Cape Town is the flashpoint
One recent approval for an Equinix hyperscale facility in Cape Town has drawn criticism, AP reports. The city came close to running out of water in 2018, and the facility is estimated to need 160 megawatts of power in a country that lived through years of rolling blackouts. Eskom now reports a power surplus, but campaigners worry that spare power will go to data centres first.
"Serious investors are not deterred by clear rules. They price uncertainty, and an unregulated boom is the most uncertain environment of all," said Pitso Tsibolane, a senior lecturer in information systems at the University of Cape Town, according to AP. He said operators are not required to disclose their water, power and land use in binding terms.
Operators say South African data centres are much smaller than the giant facilities in the US and should not be compared with them.
