Guyana must not become the dumping ground of the digital age

May 08, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Everybody is now coming to Guyana with investment proposals. And our leaders, drunk on neo-liberal medicine are welcoming them with open arms.

One man is promising a luxury resort. Another promising an industrial park. Others are promising a smart city. And now the newest fashion in development madness is the data center — giant warehouses full of humming computers sucking up electricity like a whirlpool in the ocean.

Already, countries across the world are beginning to resist these facilities. Communities in America are protesting them because of noise pollution, air pollution, water consumption and soaring energy demand. Yet in Guyana, where we import ideas every few years and then call it “visionary development,” some of our leaders are behaving as though data centers are the eighth wonder of the world.

But Guyanese had better wake up before we trade away our peace, environment and public health for a few temporary construction jobs and something to use up the vast utilized energy that will come with natural gas.

A data center is not some harmless office building where people are sitting quietly typing on laptops and drinking coffee. These things are industrial operations. Massive industrial operations. Thousands upon thousands of servers running day and night, producing heat nonstop, requiring gigantic cooling systems and backup generators powerful enough to light entire towns.

And those generators do not run on power from solar farms. They run on powerful generators powered by fossil fuels and natural gas.

In the United States, persons living near some of these facilities are already complaining about a constant humming sound, day and night.  Imagine trying to sleep while an industrial machine groaning twenty-four hours a day nearby. Guyanese know already how stressful constant noise can be. One wedding house with four box speakers could traumatize an entire community till Monday morning. Now imagine an endless mechanical roar every day of the year.

Then comes the air pollution. Backup generators emitting fumes. Cooling systems consuming enormous energy. More pressure on electricity production. More natural gas cleaner but not clean, being burned. And this is happening at the same time the world supposedly trying to reduce emissions and save the planet from climate catastrophe.

For years, developed countries polluted the earth. Now, they are preaching sustainability to everybody else. Yet many of these same countries now trying to offload energy-hungry data infrastructure into rural and developing regions where land is cheaper, regulations weaker and governments easier to dazzle with investment brochures. It is imperialist exploitation in a new guise.

Remember when they wanted to dump industrial waste in Guyana. We must not become the dumping ground for the digital age. And what exactly are we getting in return?

The sales pitch always sounds glorious. “Technology hub.” “Digital transformation.” “Innovation ecosystem.” But when you scrape off the corporate perfume, the truth is that data centers generate relatively few permanent jobs. After construction finish, you might have a handful of technicians and security guards overseeing acres of computers serving customers overseas.

That is not transformational development. That is glorified electronic storage.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens could end up paying the real price through higher electricity demand, environmental degradation, pressure on public infrastructure and the effects on their mental health.

Guyana should instead be investing in industries that actually enrich communities. Agriculture. Agro-processing. Ecotourism. Renewable energy. Fisheries. Manufacturing. Industries where human beings — not machines — remain at the center of economic life.

What do you think would make more sense for Guyana: preserving thousands of acres of biodiversity and creating sustainable jobs connected to our forests and rivers, or bulldozing land so foreign corporations can store videos, AI prompts and cryptocurrency data?

And there is another uncomfortable question nobody wants to ask loudly. What exactly are these data centers helping to power?

Artificial intelligence systems. Surveillance systems. Military technologies. Consumer manipulation algorithms. Endless social media addiction machines.

Around the world, AI is increasingly tied to warfare, propaganda and mass surveillance. The same technological infrastructure being marketed as progress is also becoming part of a machinery that many people fear is eroding privacy, destabilizing societies and removing human judgment from dangerous decisions.

Guyana should think carefully before rushing headlong into becoming a fueling station for that global system.

Guyana is already facing enough developmental pressures. Rising temperatures. Flooding. Strained infrastructure. Electricity challenges. We should not now volunteer to host giant energy-consuming facilities that primarily benefit foreign corporations while local people absorb the environmental and social costs.

Not every investment is good investment. Some investments enrich a country. Others merely occupy it.

Guyana’s future cannot simply become a contest to see how many foreign industries we can cram onto the coastline before we run out of land, power and patience. Development must improve human life, not surround people with noise, pollution and industrial machinery disguised as progress.

The world already has enough giant warehouses full of computers. What it desperately needs now are countries wise enough to protect their people, their peace and their environment before it is too late.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Agro-processing. Ecotourism, digital age, dumping ground, Peeping Tom

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