Not surprising that the colonialisms of previous eras should make extensive geological surveys of grabbed lands nor that that these themselves are competed for in the new grab for minerals and metals demanded by the modern economy and its technologies. Belgian colonial power in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is notorious for its particular gruesome cruelties while its geological records were exhaustive. The se survey records and maps are still held by the colonialists at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren near Brussels. The government of the DRC has demanded access to them to be digitised and used. For the digitisation process they have taken the risk of making a partnership with the Bill Gates-backed Ko Bold Metals company. In a burst of righteousness the Museum refuses to give access because of the involvement of a capitalist concern like Ko-Bold. The deprivation, however desperate such a partnership, means even less chance of the people of the DRC benefitting from their treasure of minerals. Meanwhile the China Railway Group would appear to already have access to records held by the museum while the Grabbers of the world believe AI will make it easy to “discover” and “unlock” such mineral wealth all over the world.
India’s rapid expansion as an AI and data centre hub is increasingly at the expense of vulnerable communities, including Dalits, a historically marginalised group that has faced caste-based discrimination and exclusion for centuries and into the present. As companies invest billions in new infrastructure, residents in some areas allege that they have been pressured to give up land or displaced to make way for data centre developments. In Mumbai, a predominantly Dalit settlement was reportedly evicted in 2024 in an area in which data centre expansion is planned, while in Andhra Pradesh, Dalit landowners near a proposed Google campus say that they are facing pressure to sell land.