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ABBOTS LANGLEY, England (AP) — Originally built to store crops from peasant farmers, the Tithe Barn on the edge of the English village of Abbots Langley was converted into homes that preserve its centuries of history. Now, its residents are fighting to stop a development next door that represents the future.

A proposal to build a data center on a field across the road was rejected by local authorities amid fierce opposition from villagers. But it’s getting a second chance from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government, which is pursuing reforms to boost economic growth following his Labour party’s election victory in July.

Residents of Abbots Langley, 18 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of London, worry the facility will strain local resources and create noise and traffic that damages the character of the quiet village, which is home to just over 20,000 people. Off the main street there’s a church with a stone tower built in the 12th century and, further down the road, a picturesque circular courtyard of rustic thatched-roof cottages that used to be a farm modeled on one built for French Queen Marie Antoinette.

“It’s just hideously inappropriate,” said Stewart Lewis, 70, who lives in one of the converted houses in the 600-year-old Tithe Barn. “I think any reasonable person anywhere would say, ‘Hang on, they want a data center? This isn’t the place for it.’”

As the artificial intelligence boom fuels demand for cloud-based computing from server farms around the world, such projects are pitting business considerations, national priorities and local interests against each other.

Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has stepped in to review the appeals filed by developers of three data center projects after they were rejected by local authorities, taking the decision out of the hands of town planners. Those proposals include Abbots Langley and two projects in Buckinghamshire, which sits west of London. The first decision is expected by January.

The projects are controversial because the data centers would be built on “greenbelt” land, which has been set aside to prevent urbanization. Rayner wants to tap the greenbelt for development, saying much of it is low quality. One proposed Buckinghamshire project, for example, involves redeveloping an industrial park next to a busy highway.

“Whilst it’s officially greenbelt designated land, there isn’t anything ‘green’ about the site today,” said Stephen Beard, global head of data centers at Knight Frank, a property consultancy that’s working on the project.

“It’s actually an eyesore which is very prominent from the M25″ highway, he said.

Greystoke, the company behind the Abbots Langley center and a second Buckinghamshire project to be built on a former landfill, didn’t respond to requests for comment. In an online video for Abbots Langley, a company representative says, “We have carried out a comprehensive search for sites, and this one is the very best.” It doesn’t specify which companies would possibly use the center.

The British government is making data centers a core element of its economic growth plans, deeming them “critical national infrastructure” to give businesses confidence to invest in them. Starmer has announced deals for new centers, including a 10 billion pound ($13 billion) investment from private equity firm Blackstone to build what will be Europe’s biggest AI data center in northeast England.

The land for the Abbots Langley data center is currently used to graze horses. It’s bordered on two other sides by a cluster of affordable housing and a highway.

Greystoke’s plans to construct two large buildings totaling 84,000 square meters (904,00 square feet) and standing up to 20 meters (66 feet) tall have alarmed Lewis and other villagers, who worry that it will dwarf everything else nearby.

They also doubt Greystoke’s promise that it will create up to 260 jobs.

“Everything will be automated, so they wouldn’t need people,” said tech consultant Jennifer Stirrup, 51, who lives in the area.

Not everyone in the village is opposed.

Retiree Bryan Power says he would welcome the data center, believing it would benefit the area in a similar way as another big project on the other side of the village, the Warner Bros.’ Studio Tour featuring a Harry Potter exhibition.

“It’ll bring some jobs, whatever. It’ll be good. Yeah. No problem. Because if it doesn’t come, it’ll go somewhere else,” said Power, 56.

One of the biggest concerns about data centers is their environmental impact, especially the huge amounts of electricity they need. Greystoke says the facility will draw 96 megawatts of “IT load.” But James Felstead, director of a renewable energy company and Lewis’ neighbor, said the area’s power grid wouldn’t be able to handle so much extra demand.

It’s a problem reflected across Europe, where data center power demand is expected to triple by the end of the decade, according to consulting firm McKinsey. While the AI-fueled data boom has prompted Google, Amazon and Microsoft to look to nuclear power as a source of clean energy, worries about their ecological footprint have already sparked tensions over data centers elsewhere.

Google was forced to halt plans in September for a $200 million data center in Chile’s capital, Santiago, after community complaints about its potential water and energy usage.

In Ireland, where many Silicon Valley companies have European headquarters, the grid operator has temporarily halted new data centers around Dublin until 2028 over worries they’re guzzling too much electricity.

A massive data center project in northern Virginia narrowly won county approval last year, amid heavy opposition from residents concerned about its environmental impact. Other places like Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Singapore have imposed various restrictions on data centers.

Public knowledge about the industry is still low but “people are realizing more that these data centers are quite problematic,” said Sebastian Lehuede, a lecturer in ethics, AI and society at King’s College London who studied the Google case in Chile.

As awareness grows about their environmental impact, Lehuede said, “I’m sure we will have more opposition from different communities.”

TOKYO (AP) — Japan is planning to build an automated cargo transport corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, dubbed a “conveyor belt road” by the government, to make up for a shortage of truck drivers.

The amount of funding for the project is not yet set. But it’s seen as one key way to help the country cope with soaring deliveries.

A computer graphics video made by the government shows big, wheeled boxes moving along a three-lane corridor, also called an “auto flow road,” in the middle of a big highway. A trial system is due to start test runs in 2027 or early 2028, aiming for full operations by the mid-2030s.

“We need to be innovative with the way we approach roads,” said Yuri Endo, a senior deputy director overseeing the effort at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Apart from making up for a shrinking labor force and the need to reduce workloads for drivers, the system also will help cut carbon emissions, she said.

“The key concept of the auto flow-road is to create dedicated spaces within the road network for logistics, utilizing a 24-hour automated and unmanned transportation system,” Endo said.

The plan may sound like a solution that would only work in relatively low-crime, densely populated societies like Japan, not sprawling nations like the U.S. But similar ideas are being considered in Switzerland and Great Britain. The plan in Switzerland involves an underground pathway, while the one being planned in London will be a fully automated system running on low-cost linear motors.

In Japan, loading will be automated, using forklifts, and coordinated with airports, railways and ports.

The boxes measure 180 centimeters in height, or nearly six feet, and are 110 centimeters, or 3.6 feet, by 110 centimeters in width and length, about the size of a big closet.

The system, which is also intended for business deliveries, may be expanded to other routes if all goes well. Human drivers may still have to do last-mile deliveries to people’s doors, although driverless technology may be used in the future.

Japan’s shortage of truck drivers is worsening due to laws that took effect earlier this year that limit the amount of overtime drivers can log. That’s seen as necessary to avoid overwork and accidents and to make the jobs tolerable, but in Japanese logistics, government and transportation circles, it’s known as the “2024 problem.”

Under current conditions, Japan’s overall transport capacity will plunge by 34% by 2030, according to government estimates. The domestic transport capacity stands at about 4.3 billion metric tons, almost all, or more than 91%, by trucks, according to the Japan Trucking Association.

That’s a fraction of what’s moving in a massive country like the U.S. About 5.2 trillion ton-miles of freight are transported in the United States each year, and that’s projected to reach more than 8 trillion ton-miles of freight by 2050. A ton-mile measures the amount of freight shipped and how far it’s moved, with the standard unit being one ton being moved one mile.

Demand for deliveries from online shopping surged during the pandemic, with users jumping from about 40% of Japanese households to more than 60%, according to government data, even as the overall population keeps declining as the birth rate falls.

As is true in most places, truck drivers have tough jobs requiring them to be on the road for days at a time, work that most jobseekers find unappealing.

In recent years, annual fatalities from delivery trucks crashing on roads have hovered at about 1,000 deaths. That’s improved from nearly 2,000 deaths in 2010, but the Trucking Association, which groups some 400 trucking businesses and organizations in the nation, would like to make deliveries even safer.

The association is also urging consumers to hold back on delivery orders or at least bundle their orders. Some industry experts are urging businesses to limit free delivery offers.

Trucks carry about 90% of Japan’s cargo, and about 60% of Japan’s fresh produce, like fruits and vegetables, come from distant places requiring trucking, according to Yuji Yano, a professor at the Ryutsu Keizai University, which is funded? by deliveries giant Nippon Express Co., now called NX Holdings, and focuses on economics and liberal arts studies, including trucking problems.

“That means the 2024 problem isn’t just a transportation problem but really a people’s problem,” Yano said.

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Yuri Kageyama is on X:

From left, Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, of the New Jersey Nets, and former players Dominique Wilkins, Julius Erving, and Michael Jordan are introduced as judges for the slam dunk contest at NBA Saturday Night, a part of NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)