Community Data Centers

Background

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expanding virtually everywhere (pun intended), even in physical spaces. Specifically, AI is spurring the demand for new data centers. Data centers are the physical buildings that house computing equipment to host the data and computational resources needed to develop, train and use contemporary AI systems. Data centers also underpin cloud computing and many other digital services we rely on today.

Currently, large cloud service providers (so called hyperscalers) such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Baido and Google Cloud are leading the construction of new data centers of unprecedented size and capacity. This trend not only exacerbates negative environmental externalities and provokes conflict with local communities, it also intensifies monopolization dynamics in the AI industry, where access to computing resources is a key competitive factor.

While this critique is evident in academic and mainstream publications, the current discourse lacks discussions on alternatives, be they real or speculative. Taking this analysis as our starting point, in this research project we aim to explore collectively owned data centers as an alternative to corporately owned and governed data centers. Specifically, we ask: How do people imagine community-owned data centers? We explore this question through a series of workshops organized at the Weizenbaum Institute and at various public events, where we gather experts and novices to co-imagine, describe and draw collectively owned data centers in a structured format. 

Get involved: UpcomingWorkshops

• Chaos Communication Congress (tbd, Hamburg)
• Digitaltag Brandenburg (11.12.25, Königs Wusterhausen)

Previous Workshops

• University of Geneva, organized with the Young Al leaders hub of Geneva (24.11.25, Geneva, Switzerland)
• FIfF-Konferenz 2025 (23.11.25, Vienna)
• Cooperative AI Conference (12.11.25, Istanbul)
• Weizenbaum Institute (10.10.25, Berlin)
• Weizenbaum Institute (6.10.25, Berlin)
• Barcamp - AI for a better world (18.9.23, Eberswalde)
• Funding the Commons (10.6.25, Berlin)

Team

• Dr. André Ullrich, Weizenbaum Institute

• Dr. Tara Merk, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) / Weizenbaum Institute

• Dr. Morshed Mannan, Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh

• Rainer Rehak, Weizenbaum Institute

• Léo Girard, Department of Social sciences, University of Geneva

• Raimundo Vásquez Ruiz, Computer Engineer (selbständig)

• Julian Pütz