Fighting the "Inevitable": AI, Hyperscale Datacentres, and Resistance

A one-hour lunchtime panel arguing that hyperscale AI datacentres are a political choice rather than a foregone conclusion: what they draw in power and water, who carries the cost, and what communities have actually managed to stop. Dr Rupert Nash of EPCC, the UK's national supercomputing centre, sits alongside Steph Wright of Our AI Collective, who worked on Scotland's first national AI strategy, Dr Victoria Plutshack of the No Gyle Data Centre campaign, and Kim Pratt of Friends of the Earth Scotland. Anna Komendantskaya of People & Planet chairs. Part of Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair at Assembly Roxy. Free, with a £5 ticket and a pay-it-forward fund for those who can. Why go: a supercomputing researcher and a datacentre campaigner on one panel is rare, and the Gyle proposal makes it local rather than abstract. Best for anyone working on AI infrastructure, energy or public policy.