Filenews 25 July 2025 - by Andrew Leahey
Somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania, a huge data center succeeded a steel mill that had long since ceased to operate. It does not emit smoke, the workers are not "visible" – you see servers, one or two guards and a creation that cost the state 75 million euros. dollars.
4,600 years ago and 5,800 miles away, the first pyramid was erected in the desert, as a radical act of state art and as an achievement of engineering. In the golden age of the Kingdom of Egypt, every new pharaoh had to face the same problem: how to prove that he was just as worthy, or even more worthy, for the throne compared to his predecessor. Pharaoh Joser built the first pyramid, his successor built a larger one. Then came Snephru, who built three pyramids. Khufu built the Great Pyramid – the largest building on earth for about 4,000 years.
And then, the construction stopped.
What had begun as an architectural innovation became a race of selfishness and exaggeration – each king, in his desperation to surpass his predecessor, sucked up the coffers, tormented the labour system and redirected resources from the day-to-day operation of the state to the construction industry. The result worsened, the projects were reduced and culture collapsed, since economic instability and political fragmentation prevailed.
By the end of the Sixth Dynasty, Egypt's centralized bureaucracy began to crumble. The state could no longer manage the huge workforce, and the construction industry slowed down. It was no longer possible to construct the "divine" monuments of the past. As John Gall once wrote, "Snephru, by increasing the scale, unwittingly overstepped the limits of engineering." His diamond pyramid collapsed.
His son, Cheops, built more carefully, but Gall points out: "The Egyptian state, under unbearable pressure from the reconstruction of these arrogant 'monsters', has surrendered to anarchy. Egypt has collapsed."
Cultures are rarely overturned by a single habit or policy. But as an allegory, history is useful. It reveals how even the most advanced societies can show symptoms of pathology: investing in spectacle at the expense of sustainability and letting ambition and innovation drag them into excess. The pyramids were more than tombs. They were symbols of power and political institutionality. Over time, this symbolism demanded ever greater sacrifices in both labour and resources, until the system that produced it could no longer afford its cost.
Contemporary monuments
Today, U.S. states are building "excessive" monuments — not of limestone, but of steel, concrete, and servers. The sacrifices required do not concern the workforce, but tax revenues, electricity and water. Across the country, governors and legislators are calling for increasingly generous tax incentives to attract data centers to their state. The huge energy-intensive facilities owned by some of the world's most valuable technology companies are springing up even in areas with shortages of electricity and water resources.
These projects are projected as the driving force of economic growth and modernization. As in the case of pyramids, however, their real value lies in their symbolic character: they prove that the host state is competitive, progressive and business-friendly. But when limited resources collide with the demands of a symbolic character, everyone loses.
Progress as an "eye trick"
In ancient Egypt, modernity imposed the grain trade, labour, and administration to operate with the aim of building ever larger monuments. Today, it imposes the deforestation of tax bases, the depletion of aquifers, the burden on the already strained electricity grids and the subsidy of private infrastructure from public coffers. The shape of the monument has changed: in 2025 it has LED lights and makes noise, but the political will remains the same.
In 2016, Pennsylvania "quietly" passed a law exempting data centers from sales and usage taxes. At that time, the projected losses for the state were 75 million euros. per year. In Texas, forecasts for similar tax breaks jumped from $130 million to $130 million. to more than $1 billion. In less than two years. More than 30 states now offer tax incentives for setting up data centers, with many pursuing automatic subsidy policies with little oversight and few long-term guarantees when it comes to job creation or revenue growth.
And what is the return for these lavish facilities provided by the states? Some fibre optic cable. Despite their huge physical footprint, most data centers don't employ many full-time employees. Most of the expenditure goes to manufacturing and the purchase of equipment, not to long-term employment. This is an inherent problem of artificial intelligence.
The "sad" one is coming.
These facilities consume huge amounts of electricity and water, requiring new spending on infrastructure that is paid for, in part, by taxpayers. U.S. utilities have already called for a $29 billion increase in electricity bill revenues. For the first half of 2025, an increase of 142% compared to last year, mainly due to the rapid increase in demand from data centers. In areas like Virginia and California, lawmakers and residents have begun to react, citing network overburdens, environmental impacts, and deals that force "locals" to foot the bill while tech giants reap the benefits.
Why, then, do states continue to seek to host data centers? Because, in the context of competition for prestige and credit, no state wants to be the first to block this infrastructure. Just as the pharaohs feared that the legitimacy of their power would be called into question if they did not surpass their predecessors, so governors and parliamentarians fear that they will be seen as uncompetitive, anti-technological, or not open to innovation.
And yet, every dollar spent to attract a data center is a dollar not spent on rehabilitating roads, upgrading water systems, or building affordable homes. The cost for the bright lights of the servers is paid by the residents, who continue to be unable to meet their basic needs.
But when all else fails politically, a deal to build a data center, even a bad deal, offers the illusion of progress: an inauguration ceremony, a tour of protective helmets, a headline in the media, and a chance to say that the future is built here, where this "here" is. It doesn't matter if the project creates ten jobs or ten thousand, what matters is growth.
This is a key danger that stems from governing with symbolism and poses. In both ancient Egypt and the 21st-century U.S., the impulsive desire to build—bigger, fast, and flashy—can be disconnected from the needs of the people the state must serve. The pyramid was ultimately less of a tomb and more of an advertising marquee. The data center became less of a public investment and more of a monument of political ambition and modernization. In both cases, citizens pay the price when the foundations of legality are built on the sand of spectacle and not on the solid ground of substance.
One day, after centuries, someone may unearth the ruins of a cloud facility on the edge of some forgotten suburb – the server rooms will be silent, its purpose will have long been forgotten. Anyone who finds traces of the facility may wonder why so many resources were spent on a structure that produced so little for the people who lived near it. The answer will be the same as in ancient Egypt: it was not built for them. It was built for the "lords" and for the illusion that they were building something great.
