Data centers should benefit the cities that power them

There's a specific kind of anger that builds when your lights flicker off at home while a data center down the street keeps humming along, fully lit. That image, drawn from Tshwane's own experience, sits at the center of a growing fight over who actually benefits from Africa's AI infrastructure boom.

South Africa has become one of the continent's top destinations for data center investment, thanks to strong connectivity and its position in the regional economy. Tshwane, the country's administrative capital, sees the opportunity clearly: jobs, investment, competitiveness. But data centers don't run on ambition. They run on electricity grids, water systems, and roads that many African cities are still struggling to maintain for their own residents.

The worry isn't hypothetical. It's the familiar pattern where infrastructure lands first, decided by people far from the city it affects, and local governments are left managing the fallout with no real seat at the table beforehand. That's precisely what the Global Urban Data Centres Pact, launched during London Climate Action Week, is trying to interrupt. More than 40 cities have signed on, including London, Chicago, Mumbai, Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, and Abidjan, all pushing for data centers that are resource-efficient, respectful of local needs, and tied to actual local economic payoff rather than distant shareholder returns.

With nearly 60% of humanity already living in cities, and urbanization only accelerating, the stakes go well beyond server racks. The pact is essentially an attempt to get cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America into the rooms where global standards for this technology get written, instead of receiving those standards as a fait accompli. And the argument from Tshwane's corner is blunt: successful cities won't just be ones that host servers. They'll be ones that help decide how those servers get planned, powered, and governed.

The economic upside being pitched is bigger than construction jobs too. Reliable digital infrastructure, done right, can seed cybersecurity firms, software shops, and digital skills programs around it. But that only happens if investment gets woven into actual urban planning rather than dropped in as a self-contained bubble. Otherwise you get exactly the resentment described up top: shiny infrastructure glowing bright next to neighborhoods running on rolling blackouts.