Erin Brockovich is back in the fight, and this time it is not about one town's poisoned water. In April, she put out a call on her website asking people with concerns about a datacentre near them to get in touch. Within a month, 3,862 people had replied, and Brockovich says the push behind AI-powered infrastructure feels like “Hinkley on steroids.”

To understand why that number matters, you have to remember what Brockovich previously did. In 1993, she was instrumental in suing Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of Hinkley, California, after their groundwater had been contaminated. That case ended in a $333m settlement, then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit. Three decades later, she is using a similar pattern: find the affected community, gather local signals, and turn them into pressure that companies and regulators cannot ignore.

Brockovich says tech companies have needed datacentres to power their technology “for ever,” but the new ones being built to power AI are different in scale and urgency. That difference is the whole point. Datacentres are not just hardware installations; they are long-lived infrastructure with real-world effects like water use, emissions, and local ecosystem strain. When demand changes fast, the consequences tend to show up first where the infrastructure lands, in neighborhoods that may not be prepared for the speed or the magnitude.

The Guardian reports that the emails Brockovich received were from people in the same town, and she realized something was going on. That detail is important from an executive and board perspective because it is a common early warning pattern: concentrated community reports often precede formal complaints, regulator scrutiny, and lawsuits. Even when the industry sees itself as providing “necessary compute,” local stakeholders can experience the buildout as an externality with a cost they did not agree to.

There is also a communications and governance angle. Brockovich has become famous because of the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts, which immortalized her as a modern-day Joan of Arc. But fame is not the mechanism here. The mechanism is a large, emotionally charged dataset of people who feel harmed, and a high-visibility advocate who can translate scattered local anxiety into a story powerful enough to attract public attention and legal attention.

For decision-makers in tech, power, and real estate, the second-order implication is that AI datacentres may draw environmental activism at the same speed as they draw capital. Building AI infrastructure typically requires long lead times, but public controversy can move quickly when communities begin organizing. If 3,862 replies can pile up in a month after an April callout, the timeline for reputational risk and regulatory questions can compress dramatically, especially in places where oversight is reactive rather than proactive.

Regulation and compliance are likely to be central, even though Brockovich is not presenting a regulator as a direct opponent in the story so far. Environmental cases historically turn on evidence, timelines, and duty of care. Brockovich's earlier win against PG&E over contaminated groundwater is a reminder that companies can face major liabilities when contamination becomes undeniable and residents are mobilized early enough to build a case. Now, with AI datacentres, the subject is infrastructure built “to power AI,” and that could mean fresh scrutiny of how environmental impact is measured and who bears responsibility when infrastructure scaling strains local resources.

The strategic stakes are not limited to one datacentre or one town. If the AI datacentre buildout is perceived as repeating the Hinkley pattern at a larger scale, boards and executives may need to treat community engagement as part of risk management, not marketing. Brockovich’s “Hinkley on steroids” framing is hyperbole, but the underlying dynamic is real: concentrated community reports, fast-growing infrastructure, and the possibility that regulators and courts eventually get asked to settle what went wrong, who knew what, and who pays for it.