The Green Party wants a 1-year pause on consenting new AI data centres. It’s a sensible call. These projects are currently decided behind closed doors, with no requirement to protect local water sources, or meaningful input from the public. But a pause on new builds, doesn’t touch the risks already here. Security failures and job losses are happening now. We’re already behind.
Datagrid’s 280-megawatt hyperscale centre near Invercargill, is set to become our second-largest electricity user after the Tiwai Point smelter. We absolutely do need our own data hubs here to maintain our digital sovereignty, but no one confirmed whether our grid or water supply can actually absorb it. A moratorium does nothing when we’ve already granted the resource consent.
Australia’s approach is worth copying. They’re creating legal obligations forcing hyperscale data centres to underwrite their own additional renewable generation. NZ could go further still, tying future consents to genuine investments in reducing our reliance on imported fuel, rather than letting offshore-owned entities absorb electricity that Kiwi households and businesses are already struggling to afford.
Against all this, we’re seeing a trend of mostly young people opting out of the AI race altogether. They’re buying “dumb-phones”, looking up old iPods, CDs or cassette players on Trademe. The newest flex — owning a decades-old camera that doesn’t connect to the internet. Oh and your grandpa’s VHS player is cool again.
They are also building DIY “cyberdecks,” a term for custom, hand-built portable computers, usually a Raspberry Pi or similar module, wired into old typewriters, or handheld consoles once made for Tetris or Pac-man. They can be screwed into anything from a vintage briefcase to an old Tamagotchi. No cloud, no algorithm, no data harvesting, just hardware you built yourself and fully understand. Companies like CircuitMess are riding the wave, selling kits that let teens solder their own self-driving robot from scratch.
It’s a small rebellion, but a telling one. People are realising AI is woven into nearly everything, whether they consented or not, and that realisation is exposing just how little most of us actually understand the systems running our lives.
Reviving old cameras or building your own transparent cyberdeck, is one of the few ways left to claw back control from corporations that would rather you didn’t ask questions.
A moratorium buys us time. What we do with that time, and whether we use it to build real protections rather than just delaying the inevitable, is the part that actually matters.
