Erin Brockovich, person and not movie, is back and she is going after AI data centres

Remember Erin Brockovich? Not the Hollywood movie, but the environmental activist whose fight against toxic groundwater contamination inspired the Oscar-winning film starring Julia Roberts. Well, Brockovich is back with a new fight to protect the environment, and this time she is taking aim at the rapidly expanding world of AI data centres.

The 65-year-old environmental activist has launched a new public reporting platform focused on AI infrastructure across the United States, asking residents to flag concerns about massive data centres being built in their communities. The website, BrockovichDataCenter.com, features a crowdsourced map showing operational, under-construction and proposed AI-focused data centres, alongside complaints and reports submitted by local residents.

Erin’s latest movement comes as technology companies such as Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI continue pouring billions into the AI infrastructure needed to train and run artificial intelligence models. But while AI promises faster tools and smarter systems, Brockovich argues that the environmental cost of that growth is not being discussed enough.

“The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America. In some places, data centers are welcomed. In others, they are delayed, contested or abandoned altogether. This MAP captures the real-world footprint of that race, revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty,” Erin wrote on the website.

The website tracks data centres across the US and allows users to flag concerns

Meanwhile, the website lists several concerns surrounding AI data centres. These include enormous electricity consumption, rising water demand for cooling systems, electronic waste from rapidly ageing hardware, noise pollution from generators and cooling equipment, and pressure on local infrastructure. The platform also highlights concerns linked to flooding, natural disasters and geopolitical risks.

According to figures cited on the platform to date, the US now has more than 4,200 data centres built to train, deploy and support AI workloads. As of this week, the website had already received thousands of community reports, with Texas recording the highest number of complaints. On the concerns front, water use emerged as the biggest issue among residents, followed by electricity, health and wildlife concerns.

Notably, the website does not explicitly call for banning data centres. Instead, Brockovich says the goal is to push for “sustainable, secure, and efficient AI data center practices” and encourage greater public transparency around projects often approved quietly at local levels. Residents can also upload photographs, articles and local tips related to nearby developments.

Who is Erin Brockovich?

For many Americans, Brockovich remains closely associated with one of the most famous environmental legal battles in US history. In the 1990s, while working as a legal clerk, she helped uncover groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California, linked to Pacific Gas & Electric. Residents were allegedly exposed to toxic chromium-6 chemicals through polluted water supplies. The case resulted in a 333 million dollar settlement in 1996, then considered one of the largest direct-action lawsuit payouts in US history.

Her story later became the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, directed by Steven Soderbergh, with Julia Roberts winning an Academy Award for portraying her.