The Algorithmic Green Grab: Digital Sovereignty, Populist Promises and the Ecological Costs of AI

As governments increasingly embrace artificial intelligence as a pathway to technological sovereignty and economic development, its ecological consequences demand greater scrutiny. In this commentary, Dr. Oludele Mayowa Solaja uses the concept of “algorithmic green grab” to examine how AI-driven infrastructure expansion may concentrate control over electricity, water, and land while disproportionately transferring environmental costs to vulnerable communities. Focusing on Nigeria’s digital ambitions, Dr. Solaja explores the tensions between populist promises of technological independence, corporate interests, ecological justice, and democratic accountability. Drawing on political economy and environmental justice perspectives, he argues that genuine digital sovereignty requires transparent resource governance, meaningful community participation, and equitable distribution of benefits. The commentary calls for integrating ecological responsibility into national strategies for AI development.

By Dr. Oludele Mayowa Solaja

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly perceived as a tool for national development, economic competitiveness and technological sovereignty. Governments are investing in data centers, cloud infrastructure and digital platforms, sometimes calling them critical to national independence in today’s competitive world economy. But the political rhetoric of “digital transformation” often clouds over the physical circumstances that make it feasible. AI requires electricity, water, land, minerals and wide industrial networks, large infrastructure. The seemingly intangible nature of this footprint therefore hides a more and more significant ecological footprint.

Global electricity consumption by data centers rose about 17 percent in 2025, and consumption by AI data centers grew by about 50 percent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). It estimates the total electricity used in data centers could reach 950 terawatt-hours by 2030 – compared with about 485 terawatt-hours in 2025 (IEA, 2026). The numbers are not representative of environmental pressures caused by all data centers. They do, however, prove that digitalization is an emerging issue of energy governance and environmental responsibility.

This commentary develops the idea of algorithmic green grab as a way to think about the political-economic dynamic of the expansion of AI and digital infrastructure and its centralization of control over ecological resources, while also potentially shifting ecological costs to communities who have less influence over the decisions being made. It makes the claim that the politics of digital sovereignty requires a consideration of not only who owns data and technology, but also who controls the energy, water and land that supports them.

When Sovereignty Becomes a Political Promise

Digital sovereignty is a very appealing political idea. It offers governments better control of national data, technology infrastructure and strategic capacities, especially in an era of proliferating digital platforms and computing capabilities in the hands of large corporations, geopolitical power players. Such concerns are legitimate. Governments may be limited in policy options by relying on external technology vendors and also may be vulnerable to commercial and geopolitical risks.

Sovereignty may also be a political story, however, in which governments claim that technology investments are a national necessity that must be taken for granted. This is where it meets populism. A populist political rhetoric often creates a separation of a people or a nation and far away or strong forces threatening them. In digital policy, this difference can be harnessed by pushing backs against foreign corporations, international rivals or domestic middlemen for technological control.

The challenge that comes when the language of national empowerment hides inequalities within the nation. A data center can be in the country but not be owned, governed or be democratically accountable within the country. Likewise, the storage of domestic data does not equate with technological independence, and foreign investment does not equate with broadly spread developmental gains.

The notion of the algorithmic green grab is based upon the wider political-economic idea of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003) and the critique of data colonialism formulated by Couldry and Mejias (2019). It expands on these insights by foregrounding ecological resources and environmental relationships that are involved in the accumulation of the digital. The issue is not just that corporations get data from societies, but that digitalization might exacerbate contests for electricity, water and land, and that benefits and costs of this development might not be shared equally.

It’s not a case of saying that all digital sovereignty projects are populist and environmentally destructive. Instead, it highlights a political risk: A technological solution perceived as a necessary means of national affirmation can become subject to checks and balances concerning its distribution and ecological impact, which can be interpreted as a threat to progress. The political is then a sub-genre of technological success.

Nigeria’s Digital Ambition and Its Ecological Test

Nigeria is an important example of this tension. The country’s digital development agenda increasingly focuses on domestic infrastructure, investment and innovation and technological capacity. According to the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation (2025), four data centers are being built in Lagos State in April 2025. The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy (FMoCID) announced on August 31, 2026, the release of a National Digital Cloud Policy to facilitate investment, digital sovereignty and government transformation, including the development of the nation’s digital capabilities.

These are the good intentions of strengthening the position of Nigeria in digital economy. But there are questions that can’t be resolved based on investments or technology. How will any extra demand for electricity be met? How will water and cooling be controlled? How will land acquisition be evaluated, local infrastructure pressures and environmental risks be evaluated? Who is to gain economically and how will the affected communities be involved in decision making?

These are questions which would need evidence that relates to the project level, and it is too early to declare that, for example, reported facilities have already resulted in specific water depletion, electricity shortages or displacement. However, the lack of available, detailed and accessible environmental data would raise governance issues. Digital infrastructure should not be treated differently to other large-scale industrial projects for transparency and environmental assessment.

The Nigerian situation is another example of why it is important to differentiate ecological sovereignty from national sovereignty. A state can tighten its grip over the infrastructure but cannot guarantee equitable access to the resources on which this infrastructure depends. Algorithmic ecological sovereignty thus means the democratic and institutional power for governments and interested communities to shape the environmental decisions, resource allocation and accountability processes that support digital systems. It does not impose ecological justice as an outside constraint on technological independence, rather than a part of it.

From Digital Sovereignty to Ecological Accountability

The environmental implications of data infrastructure are not inevitable or uniform. They depend on technological design, energy sources, cooling systems, location, regulatory standards and institutional accountability. The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s account of water reuse in Quincy, Washington, describes a facility developed through collaboration between Microsoft and the city to reduce reliance on potable groundwater. Operational since 2021, the system offsets an estimated 138 million gallons of water demand annually (US EPA, 2023). Although this arrangement cannot simply be transferred to Lagos or other Nigerian locations, it demonstrates that infrastructure design and public regulation can influence the distribution of environmental costs.

Four Governance Principles Stand Out as Especially Significant

First, mandatory environmental transparency should accompany data-center development. Electricity usage, water needs, cooling solutions, emissions impacts and resource management plans should be made public by operators and relevant public agencies. This kind of data helps citizens, researchers and regulators assess the true costs of digital expansion.

Second, cumulative pressures need to be taken into account during environmental assessment. Individual facilities can meet regulatory standards, while the cumulative impacts of several developments can put increased stress on the existing electricity, water and land infrastructures. Assessment must therefore take into account project-specific impacts as well as the broader context of the ecological conditions of host communities.

Third, public incentives must be related to proven public value. Concessions, land allocations and infrastructure should be tied to quantifiable pledges in the areas of energy efficiency, responsible water use, skills development in the local community, environmental protection and community benefits. Investment is not an investment objective.

Fourth, there must be pathways for involvement of affected communities. Consultation should occur prior to making critical decisions, with information being available and mechanisms in place to raise concerns. This is not just a requirement of the procedures. It is at the heart of environmental justice, which has three dimensions: distributive, procedural and recognitional (Schlosberg, 2007).

These principles also offer a means to assess political statements regarding digital sovereignty. Citizens should be able to ask whether technological development bolsters collective control over resources, benefits communities in an equitable manner, and shields communities from environmental costs that fall unequally.

Conclusion

AI’s growth holds exciting potential for economic transformation, innovation and national development. But its environmental base requires a more critical comprehension of technology progress. Measuring digital sovereignty is not just about the placement of data centers or the amount of investments or even national cloud policies. It must also be evaluated in terms of governance of energy, water and land that digital systems rely on.

Algorithmic green grab points to the risk of new technologies re-producing the patterns of old forms of extraction and unequal development, but under the guise of innovation and national empowerment. Political pledges of independence subsumed into digital but not environmental accountability, risk digital sovereignty as a symbolic gesture rather than a substantive democratic state.

The question for Nigeria and other nations with aspirations to enhance their technology, then, is not whether or not technological advancement can be made at the cost of the environment. It is whether or not digital development can be structured to embed ecological resources, public responsibility, and community participation in technological sovereignty. What the societies that support the development of AI can and do say about who benefits, who is hurt, and whose ecological interests are considered will be as important for the future legitimacy of the development of AI as what algorithms can achieve.

References

Couldry, N. & Mejias, U. A. (2019). “Data colonialism: Rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject.” Television & New Media, 20(4), 336–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476418796632

Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. (2026, August 17). Federal Government unveils National Digital Cloud Policy to drive investment, digital sovereignty and government transformation.https://fmcide.gov.ng/federal-government-unveils-national-digital-cloud-policy-for-investment-digital-sovereignty-and-government-transformation/

Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation. (2025, April 9). Four data centers under construction in Lagos State—Sanwo-Olu. https://fmino.gov.ng/four-data-centers-under-construction-in-lagos-state-sanwo-olu/

Harvey, D. (2003). The new imperialism. Oxford University Press.

International Energy Agency. (2026). Key questions on energy and AI. https://www.iea.org/reports/key-questions-on-energy-and-ai

Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining environmental justice: Theories, movements, and nature. Oxford University Press.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2023). Water reuse case study: Quincy, Washington.https://www.epa.gov/waterreuse/water-reuse-case-study-quincy-washington