As AI guzzles water and energy, we are already facing a choice: datacentres or homes? | John Harris

Whitehall wants to triple their number in the UK. Yet in Slough, I saw the impact they’re having on communities

Amid headlines about , many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd miles west of London.

But these days, this area of town – an incongruous mixture of old-school businesses such as Mr Clutch and Angling Direct, and vast, metal-clad leviathans that look like something pulled from JG Ballard – has