Communities in Arizona, Indiana, and Tennessee are blocking AI data centers. Learn about xAI’s „Colossus,“ the 125% rise in opposition, and impact on local bills
The AI boom currently underpinning the United States economy has led to a rapid expansion of data centers. These facilities are necessary for processing AI calculations, especially for cloud services, but they also have downsides. Data centers, especially those built for AI, are enormous. The big data centers can take up millions of square feet to house racks of interconnected supercomputers. That means they draw a lot of power and create a lot of noise. As it turns out, a large and growing number of people would prefer not to live alongside gargantuan buildings spewing smoke into the sky, driving away wildlife with constant noise, and increasing their power bills in the process. Now, communities across the country are pushing back.
Not only is the backlash widespread, it is both bipartisan and effective. In communities from Arizona to Virginia, residents have banded together to slow or outright stop the construction of new AI data centers, stymying expansion plans from hyperscalers. The efforts to put the kibosh on new server farm construction have only just begun to draw journalistic scrutiny, but they have been well underway. It seems people across the country leapt to attention after waves of press highlighting the negative externalities of data centers for nearby residents, including one xAI data center in Memphis, Tennessee, powered by 33 methane gas turbines. Nicknamed „Colossus“ by owner Elon Musk, the server farm has increased smog in the city by as much as 60%, according to the Tennessee Lookout. The city’s racially diverse and economically disadvantaged residents had little say and even less recourse.
Eager to prevent a similar fate in their own respective locales, here’s how concerned citizens across the U.
