Dawn of the Data Centers

Foreign Policy · Christina Lu · 2026-10-28 10:00 UTC

A global boom is underway. Are countries ready?

Data centers are popping up all over the world at stunning speed. But not everyone is rolling out the welcome mat.

Countries have long housed power-hungry data centers—the facilities packed with computing infrastructure that underpins the internet as we know it. But their numbers have exploded amid the global artificial intelligence race, which requires massive computing power. That has led to the spread of even bigger data centers around the world, including the more controversial “hyperscale” facilities used by tech giants.

Data centers are popping up all over the world at stunning speed. But not everyone is rolling out the welcome mat.

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