A proposed data center in downtown Oakland is the latest artificial intelligence project to face backlash, but proponents say this one’s different.
Developer Behring Companies is planning to use a portion of an almost 83,000 square-foot 4-story building at 415 20th St. as a data center to complement a larger AI campus. About 20,000 square-foot would be used for the data center, according to Behring’s plans.
The building used to be a supercomputing complex for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Behring Companies’ CEO Colin Behring says those operations are not different from what the project proposes.
“Nothing has changed, and our proposal at this point is to use the same building doing what it used to do the same way,” said Behring, who spoke at a Friday press conference alongside Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife. “While it might be big headlines to talk about data centers, this project is very much different.”
Behring said there are various definitions of what a “data center” is and the space is not like a typical data center that is made up of racks and computing for different outside parties in a dark place.
“For us, the data center is effectively really strong computers in your office,” Behring said.
The project includes three neighboring buildings and would house a 39-story apartment complex directly above the 19th Street BART station, 20 stories of office space and a parking area. The site already supports up to 20 megawatts of computing capacity because of its past use, according to Behring.
For comparison, that’s about 15 times smaller than the largest proposed data center in the state, which would consume 330 megawatts. AI data centers popping up around the country have sparked concerns about water and energy usage, noise pollution and health effects.
In the Bay Area, data center proposals have not gone over well with residents. From Oakley and Pittsburg in the East Bay to Gilroy in Silicon Valley, advocates have cited a range of environmental and aesthetic concerns with facilities planned in their communities.
“I wanted to be absolutely critically clear that this is not the large-scale mega-facility that people have expressed, and legitimately so, concerns,” Fife, who represents downtown Oakland where the project is proposed, said.
The councilmember told reporters her goal is to revitalize the downtown area by bringing responsible development to the city, and that she’ll be communicating with Behring to keep an eye on the proposal and ensure the public is informed.
Opponents still aren’t so sure.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation has emerged as one of the project’s primary opponents, starting an online petition over concerns AI data centers “destroy jobs and the environment,”
“As long as tech billionaires control AI, they’ll use the technology to raise profits by eliminating millions of jobs. And they don’t care if they have to destroy the planet to do so,” the website reads. “This fight is about who decides the future of Oakland: the people, or the ultra wealthy.”
Behring said the project would provide up to 2,300 jobs, with neighboring businesses producing more.
The proposal, which was sent to city staff a week ago, is still in the beginning stages, so it hasn’t reached the City Council. Fife said it may not need additional approval if Behring’s uses conform with existing uses by the Lawrence lab.
Either way, Fife said she’s in the process of developing legislation that would define what responsible AI use is.
KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.