- At a meeting of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), Indigenous advocates called for attention to the need for AI to be developed in ways that align with Indigenous rights and priorities.
- Data centers, the infrastructure that powers AI technology, require large amounts of energy and water to operate, yet many are constructed in water-stressed regions, leading to widespread opposition among local residents.
- Many sources who spoke to Mongabay raised concerns about their land, water and food sovereignty.
- Some said they believe the infrastructure could create opportunities for Indigenous people, so long as it complies with the principles of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and meaningful participation, among other steps.
Artificial intelligence is said to be the transformative technology of our time, with the potential to reshape our world on a global scale, according to research. Yet AI’s potential is underpinned by the need for hyperscale data centers, the large, energy-intensive sites that house servers and IT equipment.
As tech companies and governments continue to develop this infrastructure at scale, Indigenous peoples from Brazil to Canada affected by the projects have responded in different ways. Some have raised concerns about pressure on water resources and inadequate consultation, while others have embraced the projects for their economic benefits.
In July 2026, at a meeting of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), Indigenous leaders, government representatives and experts called for data center projects to comply with the principles of free, prior and informed consent, or FPIC. They also explored whether growing AI infrastructure can be developed in ways that advance Indigenous priorities and rights.
During a panel discussion on the second day of the EMRIP meeting, Indigenous delegates said that policies to ensure that AI does not harvest Indigenous knowledge without consent are of equal importance to protections for Indigenous lands and waters.
“AI is resource-intensive and requires vast amounts of energy,” said Maren Storslett, a member of the Sámi Parliament in Norway at the meeting. “In Sápmi, we already see how large data centers put [immense] pressure on our territories. This forces a conversation about priorities and limits and we need to be at the table on these discussions.”
According to the International Energy Agency, conventional data centers, which store thousands of computing machines and their related hardware to power everyday digital infrastructure such as cloud storage, may draw around 10 megawatts to 25 megawatts of power. But a hyperscale, AI-focused data center, of the like being advanced by transnational companies such as Google and Amazon, can have a capacity of 100 MW or more, consuming as much electricity as 100,000 households.
High energy demand, along with the copious amounts of water required to operate large-scale data centers and the racks of servers that provide the computing power, was frequently raised as a concern by sources at the Indigenous conference. Research by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the U.S. has estimated that data centers in that country alone directly consumed approximately 66 billion liters (17.4 billion gallons) of water in 2023. It also calculated that energy generation for data centers consumed 800 billion l (211.3 billion gal) of water indirectly, approximately equivalent to 320,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
By 2030, the energy consumed by data centers is expected to double to 945 terawatt-hours. That’s enough energy to power the electricity needs of all 1.3 billion residents of sub-Saharan Africa for five and a half years, and comes with an associated water footprint that would meet their domestic water needs for a year.
“These technologies … come with environmental cost,” said Aluki Kotierk at the meeting, who is Inuk from Canada and current chair of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. “The data centers that power them consume vast amounts of energy, water and minerals, resources that are often extracted from or developed on Indigenous peoples’ lands without their meaningful participation or consent, with potential serious consequences for their rights, livelihoods, and environments.”
Extraction for AI data center resources can result in the degradation of sacred sites and threats to fragile ecosystems, Camila Vergara, a board member of the Forum for Real Economic Emancipation (FREE), a grassroots network that helps local communities understand the economic and social systems that affect their lives, told Mongabay via email.
Matthew Rantanen, a descendant of North America’s Cree people and leading advocate for digital equity and broadband connectivity in Native communities, told Mongabay that while some fixes could lead to potential benefits for Indigenous people, the electricity and water needs of hyperscale data centers can be detrimental to Native lands that lack the capacity to meet their resource requirements.
Rantanen said he believes an industry shift toward renewable energy and alternative cooling methods is needed to ensure that AI infrastructure aligns with Indigenous priorities and rights.
When it comes to permitting, he added, there need to be in-depth studies about resource availability and the possible impacts on communities and ecosystems, as well as the involvement of those affected throughout the entire life cycle of a project — a point reinforced by participants at the EMRIP meeting.
Other Indigenous experts, such as Rochelle Diver, a citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, in what is today the U.S., and the U.N. environmental treaties coordinator for the International Indian Treaty Council, have called for support for a moratorium on data centers. “We are in an urgent situation regarding the infrastructure being built on a massive scale to power AI technology,” she said at the meeting.
A growing wave of litigation
Data centers are often constructed in water-stressed regions, such as Querétaro in Mexico and Santiago in Chile. In a protest against the construction of a Google data center in Santiago, Indigenous peoples, local communities and workers’ unions rallied around the slogan “no es sequia, es saqueo” (“this is not a drought, this is a robbery”). In 2025, the Anacé Indigenous people in northeastern Brazil filed an official complaint before federal authorities, requesting the cancellation of a $10 billion TikTok data center on their land. Leaders said their right to consultation was violated and their concerns about its impact on water were dismissed.
Roberto Anacé, leader of the community, told Mongabay via WhatsApp that the project “hinders our community, first disrespectfully separating relatives, causing fights, personal interests, bringing out ambition and hatred in human beings, and above all destroying our sacred things: Mother Earth, water, climate, air.”
A recent analysis by the London School of Economics suggests the next wave of climate litigation may relate to the impacts of large data centers on which AI and machine learning rely. In 2024, following protests in Santiago, an environmental tribunal in Chile suspended the construction of a Google data center on the grounds that the environmental impact had not been properly considered. In Brazil, however, there has been no progress to date on the Anacé people’s lawsuit against TikTok.
In the U.S., a more than $1 billion Meta data center project in east Tulsa, Oklahoma state, has received a mixed response. While some community members support it, others are firmly opposed to it and have actively campaigned against it. Cheyenna Morgan, an enrolled member of the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Native Americans, with heritage from the Ogala Lakota Tribes, told Mongabay via email that the data center will place a heavy burden on local power and resources.
Morgan, who is also coalition coordinator of Stop Data Colonialism, a national, Indigenous coalition working to stop the rollout of hyperscale data centers on vulnerable lands, said her community has already experienced an increase in electricity bills and is expecting further rate hikes. “These impacts will be felt on regular people who didn’t ask to have these in their neighborhoods,” she said.
In March, Tulsa city councilors passed a data center construction moratorium to allow more time to assess the project’s impact. Similar moratoriums have been passed by other tribes in the U.S., including the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Google, Meta and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Considering AI initiatives
As the technology is so new, while some delegates at the EMRIP meeting spoke of direct experience with harmful data centers, others spoke of potential risks.
Julia Aka Wille, who is Inuk from Greenland and was invited by the Inuit Circumpolar Council to speak at EMRIP, said that even though her homeland does not have any data centers yet, they are still concerned about their impact on the climate. “They still affect us in that way, because they use so much energy and water and it will contribute to the general climate change,” Aka Wille said. “The Arctic is the region that is most affected by climate change because the ice is melting and this affects us that we can’t really have the same way of living anymore.”
Though Aka Wille said she sees opportunity in AI to help teach and preserve Indigenous languages like hers, she said she hopes that Indigenous peoples from around the world can work together to ensure AI is used in a responsible way.
In Canada’s Alberta province, some Indigenous nations have embraced the data center boom, emerging as key stakeholders and investors. The Woodland Cree First Nation recently announced plans for a 650-MW data center in the province that will use an idle power plant for energy generation. Woodland Cree has a 51% stake in the project.
Te Kāhui Raraunga, an Indigenous-led initiative in Aotearoa New Zealand, demonstrates how some tribal nations are considering AI initiatives that respect Indigenous rights and priorities. The organization has created a Māori Data Governance Model and Māori AI Governance Framework focused on data policy and infrastructure.
As part of this initiative, leaders from 85 tribal nations gather each quarter to ensure the communities’ key priorities are upheld.
“These hyperscale data centres come with promises of economic development and digital sovereignty; however, the reality can be much different, and it is vital that iwi Māori have the information they need to make informed decisions,” Erena Mikaere, the digital program lead for Te Kāhui Raraunga, told Mongabay via email.
She added that the organization has developed resources for tribal leaders that highlight the impacts of these hyperscale data centers, as well as what to consider before signing any agreement.
At EMRIP, Indigenous delegates said there was a need for meaningful participation throughout the development, implementation and governance of AI initiatives that affect them.
“We must not only ask what AI can do, but what it should do,” Maren Storslett said. “Respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples must apply across the entire life of AI systems.”
Grist reporter Joseph Lee contributed reporting to this story. This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance.
Banner image: Grist / Getty Images / Dionne Phillips.
Thai data center boom sparks fears of water shortage, air pollution
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Lehuedé, S. (2024). An elemental ethics for artificial intelligence: Water as resistance within AI’s value chain. AI & Society, 40(3), 1761-1774. doi:10.1007/s00146-024-01922-2
Cite this article
Aimee Gabay (2026). Indigenous advocates push for rights protections around AI data centers. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323706Credits
