Here’s Why Everyone Hates AI Data Centers: An Explainer [Op-Ed]

It feels like the United States gets more polarized every year, yet one issue has surprisingly united people of all political stripes over the last year: data centers. 

In both Red and Blue states, there has been an overwhelming backlash against AI Data Centers. So let’s talk about what they do and why there is such a pronounced backlash against them.

So data centers are not an entirely new thing. They’ve existed in some form or another since the creation of the internet and have been used to manage cloud storage, email services, and productivity management. The difference between traditional data centers and AI data centers is largely scale. 

AI data centers take up a lot of space, use a lot of resources, and require very few people to operate them. So while a data center may create temporary jobs during construction, once it’s up and running, it isn’t a meaningful source of employment in the community it’s placed in. 

AI data centers need significantly more RAM than regular data centers, as well as graphics processing units (GPUs) and other computer chips. This massive increase in demand for RAM and GPUs, driven by AI data centers, has had a negative economic impact on the average consumer. The price of everything from computers, phones, tablets, and gaming consoles has continually increased over the last two years due to higher manufacturing costs. 

AI data centers also have a pronounced, negative environmental impact on the areas they’re built. Elon Musk’s xAI is facing a lawsuit in Tennessee for building a series of data centers that have led to an increase in air pollution in the predominantly Black neighborhoods that surround it. Many AI data centers are being built in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods, and there have been countless reports about the light, noise, and air pollution they create. These data centers often increase utility costs for the people who live near them. 

There’s also the water issue. So I live in Arizona, and if you weren’t aware, we are staring down the brink of a serious water crisis. As we’re a (very hot) landlocked state, we rely on water from the Colorado River for our everyday needs. That’s becoming a quickly approaching problem, as we’re set to lose access to 27% of our water supply due to an ongoing drought. Considering how much water an AI data center consumes, you can understand why Arizonans in particular have been against the construction of new data centers in the state. 

The widespread backlash against data centers isn’t going unnoticed by state legislatures and city councils. The Washington Post found that 375 bills intended to limit data center construction have been introduced in state legislatures across the United States. 

This increase in anti-data center legislation could be seen as self-preservation by legislators, as voters have shown a willingness to vote against anyone who approves data center construction. Earlier this year, the Missouri town of Festus voted out every member of its city council who approved the construction of a new data center. 

It honestly gives me hope that, if we get a Congress and president with some degree of competence in the next two years, we could start to see meaningful AI regulation. I’m not a defeatist, so I don’t subscribe to the notion that an AI takeover is inevitable, because that’s giving way too much power to corporate ghouls. If you don’t want an AI data center in your backyard, go to town halls and let your state and city legislators hear about it.