World

Every time we make a call on Zoom, upload a document to the cloud or stream a video, our computers connect to vast warehouses filled with servers to store or access data.

Not so long ago, European countries were falling over each other to welcome the firms that run these warehouses, known as data centres or bit barns.

Wide-eyed politicians trumpeted investments and dreamt of creating global tech hubs.

But then the dream went sour.

The sheer amount of energy and water needed to power and cool these server farms shocked the public.

The industry sucked up 14 percent of Ireland’s power last year, London warned home builders that power shortages caused by bit barns could affect new projects, and Amsterdam said it simply had no more room for the warehouses.

Then things got worse.

The war in Ukraine helped spark an energy crisis across the continent, leaving consumers facing rocketing bills and countries contemplating energy shortages.

“Data centres will be a target,” critical blogger Dwayne Monroe told AFP, saying the focus would only grow if Europe cannot fix its energy crisis.

Grassroots campaigns and local opposition have already helped to halt projects this year by Amazon in France, Google in Luxembourg and Meta in the Netherlands.

The Irish government, while reaffirming support for the industry, put strict limits on new developments until 2028.

The data industry says it feels unfairly targeted, stressing its efforts to source green energy and arguing that outsourcing storage to bit barns has helped slash consumption.

– ‘Veil of shadow’ –

These arguments are playing out most spectacularly in Ireland.

Activists are campaigning on a broad range of topics and using local forums to push their case.

“They take up a huge amount of space but provide basically no employment,” says Madeleine Johansson, a Dublin councillor for the People Before Profit party, which is campaigning on the issue.

Johansson recently had a motion passed in her council area banning the centres, sparking an almighty row with the national government that is yet to be resolved.

Dylan Murphy of Not Here, Not Anywhere, one of several climate groups pushing the issue in Ireland, has filed a motion in his local council in Fingal calling for companies to reveal the kind of information they are holding.

“There’s a complete lack of transparency… about what data is actually being stored in these data centres,” he said, calling it a “veil of shadow”. 

The data industry says revealing that information would be impossible.

Michael McCarthy of Cloud Infrastructure Ireland, a lobby group, said activists had lost the argument on sustainability and were now throwing everything at the wall. 

“Data centres definitely are large energy users but they’re part of a cohort of larger energy users,” he said.

McCarthy and industry figures in other countries say the real problem is years of underinvestment in national energy infrastructure. 

He also pointed out that the industry in Europe had pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030.

And there are still countries hankering to get data firms to locate there — particularly Iceland and Norway.

– Questions over metaverse –

Against this backdrop, the tech industry continues to innovate new products that invariably require vast amounts of processing power and data storage.

Machine-learning tools, for example, are hugely energy hungry — Google said earlier this year they accounted for between 10 and 15 percent of its total energy usage.

The metaverse, an emerging concept for a 3D internet championed by Facebook owner Meta, would also be hugely energy intensive. 

Critical blogger Monroe reckons the metaverse will buckle under its own weight, partly because of its data requirements.  

“The construction of the metaverse would require Facebook to build out a distribution of data centres that would rival what Amazon, Microsoft and Google have done for their clouds,” he said.

Meta did not respond directly to questions about the metaverse but told AFP that it was “proud to build some of the most energy and water efficient data centres in the world”.

As far as the carbon footprint of such innovation goes, energy experts interviewed by AFP said it would be difficult to assess.

The metaverse, for example, could help to reduce emissions in other areas by reducing the need for travel.

An energy official who did not want to be named questioned whether data centres were the best target for criticism when cryptocurrencies were so wasteful.

While data centres used about one percent of global energy output in 2020, cryptocurrency mining used about half that amount, according to the International Energy Agency.

McCarthy said those who opposed data centres needed to reckon with just how embedded they had become in everyday life, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic.

“They facilitate how we can work and live online, that’s the reality of it,” he said.

California filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing Amazon of using its market influence to prevent merchants from offering buyers better deals elsewhere online, in violation of state antitrust law.

Amazon pressures merchants not to list items at lower prices on other websites, which hurts sellers and consumers, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the lawsuit.

“Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can’t afford to say no,” Bonta said in a release.

“Many of the products we buy online would be cheaper if market forces were left unconstrained.”

The attorney general in Washington had filed a similar suit against Amazon, but a judge dismissed the case in March.

“Similar to the DC Attorney General — whose complaint was dismissed by the courts — the California Attorney General has it exactly backwards,” an Amazon spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law.”

– Amazon dominance –

Amazon is such a dominant e-commerce site that merchants feel they have little choice when it comes to agreeing to the titan’s selling conditions, Bonta’s lawsuit argued.

Those demands include agreeing not to offer lower prices elsewhere, whether it be at Amazon rivals such as Walmart or a merchant’s own website, the suit said.

Vendors who don’t comply can see their listings made less prominent or even have their ability to sell items on Amazon suspended, according to the suit.

“Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively,” the spokesperson said, noting that sellers set their own prices for products at its website.

Sellers have reported that they could offer goods at lower prices on their own websites and some other e-commerce venues because they would save on fees charged by Amazon, state attorneys argued.

But “with other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases,” Bonta said.

“This perpetuates Amazon’s market dominance.”

Bonta is asking a state court in San Francisco to order Amazon to stop its price-floor practice and pay unspecified damages.

While it is true that some Amazon agreements with sellers preclude them from offering lower prices elsewhere online, such conditions are common in the retail industry and don’t stop merchants from lowering prices overall, GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders said in an analyst note.

“This, if anything, allows Amazon to protect its consumers by guaranteeing they are getting one of the best deals,” Saunders said.

“Amazon attracts a lot of scrutiny, but given the amount of competition it has injected into the retail market, it strains credulity to suggest the company has caused any serious harm to consumers.”

Unfortunately for Amazon, California has the resources to pour into the litigation, and it comes as Amazon sales are slowing, the analyst noted.

Seattle-based Amazon is also likely concerned that the California lawsuit is a prelude to federal antitrust action, Saunders said.

US regulators have ramped up their focus on the market power of tech giants, as the fate of legislation aimed at loosening their grip on markets remains undecided.

TikTok is serving up misinformation to users searching for news about politics, climate change, Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and more, according to a report released Wednesday.

Toxicity and false claims are a “significant threat” at TikTok, which is becoming a go-to online venue for young people to search for information, according to a study by NewsGuard, a media watchdog.

NewsGuard describes itself as a “journalism and technology tool” that rates the credibility of websites and online information.

“Even when TikTok’s search results yielded little to no misinformation, the results were often more polarizing than Google’s,” NewsGuard said of its findings.

NewsGuard in September analyzed the top 20 results from 27 TikTok searches on news topics, finding that 19.5 percent of the videos suggested contained false or misleading claims, the report stated.

Researchers said that they compared TikTok and Google results from searches for information about school shootings, abortion, Covid-19, US elections, Russia’s war on the Ukraine and other news.

False or misleading claims in results included conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon and supposed home recipes for hydroxychloroquine, a prescription drug used to treat malaria and lupus, according to NewsGuard.

TikTok says the methodology used in the analysis is flawed, and that it makes a priority of fighting misinformation.

“Our Community Guidelines make clear that we do not allow harmful misinformation, including medical misinformation, and we will remove it from the platform,” a TikTok spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

“We partner with credible voices to elevate authoritative content on topics related to public health, and partner with independent fact-checkers who help us to assess the accuracy of content.”

While testifying Wednesday at a Senate hearing on social media’s impact on national security, Twitter former senior vice president of engineering Alex Roetter said that the Chinese government is an investor in TikTok parent company Bytedance, and that it has incentives to maximize profit and user engagement.

“The TikTok algorithm pushes educational science, engineering, and math content on Chinese youth while pushing a feed containing twerking videos, misinformation, and other destructive content to US children,” Roetter told Senators.

Social media companies stand to benefit from attention-grabbing online content despite harmful effects it may have on society, Roetter said in opening remarks.

“Our terms of service and community guidelines are built to help ensure our vision of a safe and authentic experience,” TikTok chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas said at the hearing.

“Our policies have zero tolerance for disinformation, violent extremism and hateful behavior.”

The Biden administration ramped up its efforts Wednesday to avoid a major strike by US freight railroad workers this weekend, which threatens to disrupt travel and supply chains two months before crucial midterm elections.

Pressure was growing on both sides to reach a deal ahead of a Friday deadline, with Amtrak canceling passenger routes in anticipation of disruption as farmers and retailers warned of supply chain chaos and called on Congress to intervene if necessary.

Negotiations are concentrated on provisions for vacation and sick days, with employees complaining they sometimes have to work long hours because of staff shortages.

Freight railroad companies and two unions representing mainly train conductors were called to a meeting at the Labor Department in Washington on Wednesday, two days after President Joe Biden sought to mediate the dispute.

In order to avert a strike on Friday at midnight, the sides would need to reach a deal, which would then be presented to the union members for a vote.

Absent an agreement, the unions and management could decide to continue the talks, keeping railroad workers on the job — or Congress could step in to block the strike.

Any strike would be bad news for Biden, who regularly expresses strong support for workers but is also struggling to avoid further economic damage ahead of key midterm congressional elections in early November.

Voters already are worried about soaring prices in the post-pandemic economy, where supply chain issues have been a constant scourge and annual inflation has surged to a 40-year high.

“The president and members of cabinet have been in touch with both unions and companies involved multiple times in order to try to avert a rail shutdown,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a briefing Wednesday. 

“All parties need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues and come to an agreement,” she said. “A shutdown of our freight system rail system is an unacceptable outcome for our economy of the American people, and all parties must work to avoid just that.” 

– ‘Critical’ –

The Association of American Railroads has warned that a strike would bring 7,000 trains to a halt and could cost $2 billion a day.

Biden in July appointed an arbitration panel to facilitate the discussions and head off a work stoppage. The “emergency board” submitted its recommendations last month, and lawmakers could require the parties to accept the compromise if no deal is reached.

Farmers and retailers urged Congress to do just that if a long strike appeared on the cards, warning it would hit the US supply chains already battered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“There is no real substitute for moving agricultural goods,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said Wednesday, warning of the impact on the global food chain if US farmers and ranchers cannot move their goods.

The National Retail Federation called freight rail “critical to the retail supply chain.”

“The timing coincides directly with peak shipping season for the winter holidays, and a rail strike at this juncture would be just one more significant, inflationary shock to an economy that is already reeling,” warned NRF CEO Matthew Shay.

Both organizations called on Congress to act quickly to avoid a shutdown.

Amtrak — which is not involved in the talks — said it was canceling the rest of its long distance passenger trains starting from Thursday to avoid disruption. 

The company had already canceled several passenger routes, including long distance routes earlier this week in advance of any strike. 

Local commuter lines in the nation’s capital also warned of potential disruptions.

Meanwhile, freight companies began making arrangements on Monday to transport hazardous materials.

The leaders of 10 other unions have already reached an agreement with the companies, which they were taking back to their members.

One, the IAM District 19 union, said Wednesday its members rejected the deal, although it agreed to continue talks until September 29. Two others said Wednesday that their members had ratified the deal.

Fresh off recent legislative victories, President Joe Biden touted an electric auto future Wednesday as the new-generation models shared the stage with gasoline at a revived Detroit Auto Show.

“The great American Road Trip is going to be fully electrified,” Biden proclaimed after test-driving one auto during a gleeful spin through showroom floor.

“When you’re driving coast to coast along I-10 or on I-75 here in Michigan, charging stations will be up and easy to find as gas stations are now.”

The visit by Biden, a self-professed “car guy,” has boosted the profile of the Detroit gathering, which is much smaller than in years past, with most foreign automakers and newer players like Tesla not presenting. 

While gasoline-powered cars still dominate US roads, Detroit auto giants have unveiled more EVs as they seek to wrest control of a growing market from Tesla and newer upstarts.

Biden’s appearance comes just weeks after the US president signed into law major new investments in semiconductor production and combatting climate change, lending the US president’s Democratic Party some momentum heading into the November midterm elections.

“People are on the precipice of a massive adoption of EVs,” Chevrolet Vice President Steve Majoros told AFP shortly before a presentation highlighting the General Motors brand’s slate of electric versions of top-selling trucks.

“More and more Americans are ready,” said Majoros, who said the increased number of charging stations has boosted confidence in EVs.

Stellantis brand Jeep released a 30-year commemorative edition of the popular Grand Cherokee SUV, as well as a new fifth-generation model that is the first Jeep plug-in hybrid.

Ford is scheduled to present its seventh-generation Mustang Wednesday night at an evening event. The company has organized a “stampede” to Detroit’s Hart Plaza of Mustangs from the six earlier generations, begun in Tacoma Washington and crossing nine states.

But the Detroit show has otherwise been short of the sort of glitzy reveals of years past, a shift that partly refects changing preferences of companies who now prefer to market directly to consumers in online launch events.

– Corvette fan –

Midway through the morning, the Detroit convention center was cleared of journalists to secure the space for Biden, who was greeted by GM Chief Executive Mary Barra and other top GM officials before test-driving the Cadillac Lyriq, a luxury EV.

The US president said he liked the Lyriq, but took a particular shine to an Orange Corvette he had earlier examined, according to a White House pool press report.

“He said he’s driving it home,” Barra said of Biden’s reaction to the Corvette, a gasoline-powered vehicle. 

Biden announced that the administration had approved funding for the first round of EV charging stations included in a $7.5 billion program funded by the 2021 infrastructure bill. 

A White House fact sheet highlighted a deluge of announcements by companies that have amounted to nearly $85 billion in investment on manufacturing of EVs, batteries, and chargers in the United States since Biden took office.

Biden has a long and generally warm relationship with Detroit giants after presiding as vice president over the bailouts following the 2008 financial crisis. 

As president, he has visited both GM and Ford.

Biden “has given a lot of kudos to the Detroit automakers,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights for the automotive research firm Edmunds.

“He’s really highlighted a lot of their products,” she said. “He’s been seen driving a lot of their products at the White House and all sorts of other places.”

– Sourcing rules –

But automakers have been griping about a provision in the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act that sets strict sourcing requirements for federal EV subsidies. 

The requirement is meant to prod automakers into using EV batteries produced in North America as well as critical materials sourced from North America or countries with which the United States has a free trade agreement.

Automakers are hoping officials in Washington show flexibility in implementing the rule.

Majoros said it is too soon to say whether the rule will prevent new subsidies for key vehicles, such as the Equinox, an SUV unveiled last Thursday with a starting price of $30,000, an affordable level in a pricey space.

“We’re looking at future plans, we’re studying how things might adapt what we do from a sourcing perspective,” Majoros said.

The GM brand plans to begin modest production of the Equinox in 2023, but 2024 is expected to be a “big year” with higher output, Majoros said. Production will go still higher in 2025, but Chevy isn’t releasing specific targets.

Majoros said Chevrolet has capacity to “flex” output depending on demand, adding, “There’s a lot of questions about the rate at which industry will adapt.”