>even housing produces far more economic activity than a shed full of servers

Objectively not, given they're able to outbid all everyone else for the same land. You might not like a massive datacenter being built to serve ads or generate AI slop, but the fact that investors are willing to put money into it, and no one else can outbid them means the market expects datacenter will generate more future "economic activity" than any other possible use for the land. Whether a $1 generated by adtech is worth more than $0.5 (or whatever) generated by a car factory is a separate discussion, but arguing over how much "economic activity" is the wrong way to approach this.

> Objectively not, given they're able to outbid all everyone else for the same land.

they're often subsidised by hopeful governments, and every tax they would pay is offset by "licensing"

it's not a level playing field