Mayors have signed the world’s first global data center pact. The C40 Cities initiative was launched at Climate Action Week in London and already reaches over 90 million people.
Mayors have signed the world’s first global data center pact. The C40 Cities initiative was launched at Climate Action Week in London and already reaches over 90 million people.
The Global Data Center Pact is the first coordinated effort by city governments to set common standards for AI infrastructure before it gets out of hand. The document defines the conditions under which data centers for artificial intelligence can be built.
The pact covers four key areas:
«Data centers are not just buildings. They are large, long-term consumers of critical urban resources. Decisions made today about these ‘AI factories’ will shape energy systems, water supplies and communities for decades to come,» said Cristina Gamboa, CEO of the World Green Building Council.
Among the signatories are half of the cities in the US: Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix, Palo Alto. They are joined by cities from Greece, Spain, Italy, the UK, Kenya, India and Australia. It is significant that not a single city in Southeast Asia has signed the pact, although this region generates a quarter of the global growth in energy demand.
The pact is part of a broader wave of regulatory initiatives. In April 2026, the state of Maine (USA) adopted a moratorium on the construction of large AI data centers until November 2027. In late 2025, Amazon was accused of deteriorating the quality of drinking water in Oregon due to nitrates — the subject of an investigation was the proximity of the company’s production facilities to water sources.
