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Erin Brockovich Is Coming for Your Data Center

The woman who took down Pacific Gas and Electric has a new target. Erin Brockovich is calling out data center operators for hiding what their AI-hungry facilities are doing to local water supplies. The global SaaS market is on track to hit $465.03 billion by the close of 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights, and almost none of those dollars come with a public environmental accounting.

Why This Fight Is Happening Right Now

The AI boom isn’t just a Wall Street story. It’s a water story. Data centers need enormous amounts of water to cool their servers. As AI workloads scale, so does that demand. And in most states, operators face no legal obligation to tell the communities sitting next to these facilities what they’re pulling from the ground or what’s going back in.

That’s exactly the kind of corporate secrecy Brockovich built her career dismantling. Her original target was a single utility company in Hinkley, California. Now the target is an entire industry that has convinced regulators, investors, and the press that its only obligation is to process data faster. According to Gartner, cited by Vena Solutions, over 80% of organizations expect to have deployed AI applications in their IT systems by the end of 2026. That’s up from just 5% in 2023. The infrastructure required to support that shift is enormous, and it sits somewhere physical. Usually near a water source.

Communities in Virginia, Georgia, and Texas have started organizing against data center expansion projects, citing noise, power draw, and water consumption. Brockovich has publicly aligned herself with grassroots groups demanding that these companies open their books on environmental impact, not just their earnings calls. The industry’s response, so far, has been silence dressed up as corporate sustainability pledges.

The Industry Does Not Want You Asking These Questions

Here’s my contrarian take: the AI industry has done something genuinely impressive. It’s made opacity feel like progress. Every time a company drops a new model or a faster chip, the conversation jumps to benchmark scores. Nobody asks what the cooling towers are drinking.

The SaaS and AI sector is celebrating a real financial turnaround right now. According to Bessemer Venture Partners, 48% of public SaaS companies are now GAAP profitable, up from just 31% in 2022. That’s a meaningful shift. But profitability built on unpriced environmental costs isn’t real profitability. It’s deferred liability, and Brockovich knows exactly how to collect on deferred liability.

I’ve watched this playbook run before. It’s the same one utilities used for decades. Show strong numbers, keep the physical footprint invisible, and let communities absorb the costs that don’t appear on the income statement. Pacific Gas and Electric ran that script for years. It did not end well for them.

The shift to usage-based pricing makes this worse, not better. According to Bessemer’s State of the Cloud 2026 report, 51% of public SaaS companies now include a usage-based pricing component, up from 27% in 2021. More usage means more compute. More compute means more servers. More servers means more water. The business model is literally engineered to scale consumption upward, and the disclosure requirements have not kept pace with that growth.

If you’re a small business owner or content creator running AI tools to stay competitive, products like InVideo AI are making it genuinely accessible to produce high-quality video without a full production team. But every AI video render, every generated image, every auto-transcribed file runs through a data center somewhere. That’s not a reason to stop using these tools. It’s a reason to start demanding that the companies running those facilities answer Brockovich’s questions publicly.

What This Means for You

If you invest in tech, you need to start thinking like an environmental attorney, not just like a growth investor. The companies that win the next five years won’t just have the best retention numbers. They’ll be the ones who can prove their infrastructure doesn’t have a Brockovich problem sitting underneath it.

Here’s what I would do. First, treat environmental disclosure like financial disclosure before putting money into AI infrastructure plays. Publicly traded data center operators and cloud providers are beginning to include some environmental metrics, but the quality varies enormously. Look for specific numbers, not sustainability pledges written by PR teams.

Second, when you’re evaluating which software tools to keep or cut, the vendor’s infrastructure transparency is a real factor now. The consolidation trend is already forcing these decisions. According to BetterCloud Monitor, the average enterprise now runs 106 SaaS applications, down 5% year over year and down 18% from the 2022 peak of 130 apps. Companies are cutting. When you’re making those calls, it’s smart to know whether your vendors publish any data on their physical footprint. Tools like AppSumo make it easy to find and lock in lifetime deals on software, and that selection process is also your moment to do a quick check on whether the company behind the tool can tell you where its servers live and what they’re using to stay cool.

Third, watch what Brockovich actually does, not just what she says. She doesn’t file complaints and wait. She builds coalitions. The communities that have successfully pushed data center operators toward disclosure did it by organizing publicly and loudly. If a facility is going up near you, that playbook is available and it works.

The Bottom Line

The AI gold rush is real. The money is real. The profitability is real. But so is the water. Erin Brockovich didn’t need a law degree to figure out that when a powerful industry refuses to answer simple questions about what it puts in the ground, the answer is usually something they’re ashamed of. That same question now sits in front of every data center operator in America. They can answer it voluntarily, or they can wait for her to show up with a documentary crew and a box of documents. I already know which option ends worse for them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Erin Brockovich targeting data centers?

Brockovich has built her public profile around fighting corporate secrecy on environmental impact, particularly around water. Data centers consume significant water for cooling operations, and many operators face limited legal obligations to disclose usage figures or environmental effects to surrounding communities. Her involvement follows the same pattern she’s used for decades: find the hidden cost that a profitable industry is passing onto people who didn’t agree to absorb it.

How does AI growth connect to the data center water issue?

Every AI application runs on physical hardware inside a physical building that needs cooling. According to Gartner, cited by Vena Solutions, AI application deployment is expected to jump from 5% of organizations in 2023 to over 80% by the end of 2026. That scale of growth means the physical infrastructure required is expanding faster than disclosure frameworks have adapted, which is exactly the gap Brockovich is pushing into.

What can investors do about data center secrecy?

Investors can prioritize companies with specific, measurable environmental disclosures over those offering vague sustainability commitments. The SaaS sector has already proved it can mature financially. According to Bessemer Venture Partners, 48% of public SaaS companies are now GAAP profitable. Environmental accountability is the next maturation step, and the companies ahead of that curve carry less regulatory and reputational exposure going forward.

Is data center water usage currently regulated?

Federal disclosure requirements are limited, and state rules vary widely. Some municipalities have begun requiring environmental impact assessments before approving new facilities, but there is no uniform national standard. Brockovich’s advocacy is focused on pushing for stronger baseline transparency requirements at the state and federal level, using the same community coalition model she’s applied in past environmental fights.

Should consumers care which AI tools they use given this issue?

Yes, and the reason is simple. Every AI tool you use runs on infrastructure somewhere, and that infrastructure has a physical environmental footprint. The good news is that market pressure works. When consumers and businesses start asking vendors about their data center practices before signing contracts or choosing tools, companies respond. Brockovich’s campaigns have always worked the same way: make the hidden cost visible, then let the market and regulators do the rest.

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