The Fourth Utility: Water, Energy, and Computational Power as Fundamental Rights in the Age of AI-Driven Silver Economy

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly positioned as a cornerstone of future healthcare delivery, social care, and economic productivity, particularly within the European Union’s Silver Economy agenda. However, AI infrastructure is computationally intensive, geographically concentrated, and energetically demanding, raising serious equity concerns about differential access for older adults in low-infrastructure areas.

This position paper synthesises published data from Eurostat, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) to map the structural mismatch between the geographic distribution of AI computational infrastructure and the residential distribution of older, low-income populations in Italy and the EU. We propose a novel composite indicator—the Computational Utility Index (CUI)—to operationalise access to computational power as a social determinant of health (SDOH).

Over 38% of EU adults aged 65+ live in areas classified as low-connectivity zones, while more than 60% of European hyperscale data centre capacity is concentrated in five metropolitan clusters (Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Paris). In Italy, Istat data indicate that 44.6% of individuals over 65 have never used the internet, rising to 67.2% in rural southern municipalities. Cross-referencing energy grid vulnerability maps with population ageing indices reveals a systematic overlap: the areas with the oldest, poorest populations are precisely those with the most fragile digital and energy infrastructure.

Computational power is following the historical arc of water supply and electricity: from private luxury, through contested resource, toward social necessity. Without deliberate regulatory and fiscal intervention, AI deployment will deepen existing health inequalities by structuring access to assistive technology, remote diagnostics, and cognitive health support along pre-existing socioeconomic fault lines. We call for EU-level recognition of computational access as a fourth utility and a fundamental social right, supported by a mandatory CUI threshold for AI health technology deployment.