Who gets the clean power? Africa’s digital boom risks creating a new generation of infrastructure enclaves

Outside Cape Town’s Civic Planning Centre on July 14, demonstrators held signs demanding “jobs, homes and water” instead of more data centres. The protest was directed at plans for two large facilities proposed for an industrial site near Cape Town International Airport. The land-use approval had moved forward, but community and civil rights groups argued that the public still lacked basic information about how much water and electricity the facilities would consume, what backup generation they would require, and how nearby neighbourhoods would benefit.