Urgent Calls for AI Control Amid Rapid Global Datacenter Expansion and Technological Advances
In late December 2025, contributors to The Guardian voiced profound concerns about the accelerating power and influence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the global expansion of datacenters, underscoring an urgent need for proactive governance and technological regulation.
Anja Cradden of Edinburgh proposed that governments act decisively to manage the AI crisis by acquiring majority shares with voting rights in struggling tech firms. Her strategy involves breaking these companies into national entities, enforcing local taxation, and implementing content and copyright laws to control AI development within borders. Cradden also suggested investing in infrastructure and wages in vital parts of these firms, potentially selling shares later at a profit, and considering closures or refusal to construct new AI datacenters to conserve resources. She emphasized diverse planning is critical to avoid excessive wealth transfers to the ultra-rich.
Adding to the urgency, Mike Scott of Nottingham advocated immediate action to mitigate dangers, highlighting risks such as AI systems sabotaging shutdowns and posing threats to humanity. Gerry Rees of Worcester evoked a cautionary tale referencing a Fredric Brown story, illustrating fears of uncontrollable AI power. These views echo concerns raised in Rafael Behr’s early December article about the fierce race to develop the ultimate AI technology.
Concurrent with these warnings, global datacenter expansion intensified through 2025 and into 2026. India attracted immense investments including Microsoft’s $17.5 billion, Amazon’s $35 billion, and Google’s $15 billion projects, with Meta constructing a center near Google’s site. Southeast Asia exhibited double-digit datacenter capacity growth in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, while Singapore remained a dense hub and Australia emerged regionally, accompanied by rising electricity demands due to cooling needs.
In Latin America, Brazil positioned itself as a datacenter leader but faced power grid challenges leading to outages amid activist resistance. Saudi Arabia and the UAE solidified their AI infrastructure credentials by signing approximately $600 billion in deals with the US during a May 2025 tour by Donald Trump. Europe’s datacenter market expanded at a slower pace compared to the US and China, while China experienced a boom approaching saturation with about 150 new datacenters completed in 2024 and up to 80% capacity unsold.
Among technological advances, self-driving cars were set for global rollout in 2026, with Waymo expanding across major US cities and London, Baidu Apollo Go operating in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and other firms introducing robotaxis in Germany, Singapore, and the UAE.
The wealth of tech billionaires surged, with the top ten adding roughly $550 billion in 2025. High-profile IPOs from OpenAI and SpaceX were valued at $830 billion and $800 billion respectively, with expectations approaching the trillion-dollar mark.
AI adoption in workplaces showed mixed outcomes, including coding productivity improvements yet a 95% failure rate in AI pilots per MIT studies. Hollywood increasingly used AI to manage costs; however, the legal sector saw unclear impacts. The Guardian announced a forthcoming year-long series in 2026 to explore AI’s influence on the future of work.
Consumer hardware trends featured new folding smartphones, rumored Apple innovations, AI-enabled devices, the decline of startups like Humane, and leadership in smart glasses by Meta. Integration of AI into appliances—such as refrigerators and even hotel smart duvets—signaled further pervasiveness of AI in daily life.
Together, the combined rapid development of AI technologies and global infrastructure growth prompted calls for urgent, coordinated control measures to balance innovation with ethical, economic, and environmental considerations.
