The specific problem CAN addresses is the absence of organized community intelligence in decisions that shape the conditions of life. Powerful technologies and development projects are routinely funded, deployed, and scaled through economic systems optimized for extraction, competition, speed, first-to-market advantage, ownership, and institutional prestige. The problem is not technology itself. The problem is that the people and ecosystems most affected are often brought in too late—after land, water, energy, housing, climate, and infrastructure decisions have already been framed by investors, developers, governments, or technical experts.
This is visible historically in damming rivers for hydroelectric power, where benefits such as electricity, irrigation, and flood control were counted first, while displaced communities, damaged fisheries, altered river systems, and downstream ecological losses were addressed later, if at all. The same pattern is now visible in AI data centers, solar geoengineering proposals, and local development pressure on conservation areas. The proposed Stratos AI data center in Utah would cover more than 40,000 acres and require about 9 gigawatts of power, provoking local opposition over water, energy, heat, and ecological impacts. Stardust’s geoengineering proposal would scatter millions of tons of particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, raising global governance questions before any community or planetary consent process exists.
The initial CAN pilots are proposed for Playas de Tijuana and Point Loma/San Diego, communities within a deeply interconnected border region. Tijuana had 1,922,523 residents in 2020, while San Diego County reached 3,336,081 residents in 2025. San Ysidro alone handled 14.8 million incoming personal vehicles and 6.8 million incoming pedestrians from Mexico in 2024, showing the scale of daily interdependence. The Tijuana River sewage crisis also demonstrates how decisions, infrastructure failures, and environmental consequences cross jurisdictions and affect millions.
Globally, the problem affects essentially everyone living under modern development systems, especially the 3.3 to 3.6 billion people the IPCC identifies as living in highly climate-vulnerable contexts. More than 4 billion people already live in cities, and nearly 7 in 10 people are expected to live in urban areas by 2050, where land use, energy, housing, transportation, water, and infrastructure decisions will determine climate outcomes. Meanwhile, data-center electricity demand is projected to double by 2030, with AI-focused data-center demand tripling.
CAN addresses the factors that create this problem: fragmented governance, weak public consent, poor information flow, lack of reliable consensus, and the absence of community guardrails before irreversible decisions are made. CAN restores the missing foundation by incorporating community intelligence into the design and implementation of cloud technology, enabling communities to observe conditions, include affected people, build consensus, coordinate action, and shape development before harm becomes permanent.