EDITORIAL: AI Data Centers Need to Slow Down

Belmont Vision Multimedia. (Haley Ramsey)

When Brenda Odell was a child in the 1950s, she felt hope for her small Black community near Memphis, Tennessee, called Boxtown, when a coal power plant was built nearby. 

It convinced her father and many others that it would bring jobs, economic prosperity and a chance at chasing the American Dream that many Black Americans had only heard about but never seen for themselves. 

The coal power plant did bring economic prosperity for the people running the company, but not for the workers who lived next door and endured the hard hours of labor while breathing in toxic air. 

By the time the plant was decommissioned in 2018, all it left behind was hazardous coal ashes, shattered dreams and broken promises.

Fast forward 70 years, and as she looks nearby in her community to see Elon Musk’s new Colossus AI data center that’s offering similar promises of local growth and prosperity, she sees history tragically repeating itself. 

Sadly, no one should blame her for feeling that despair.

History may not repeat directly, but it rhymes in such a way that anyone can see certain patterns trickling throughout time, and there’s nothing more repetitious than unchecked power and rapid expansion of an industry leading to generational damage to less-privileged communities.

To see what is next in line, don’t look any further than the trendiest economic engine that holds all the hype and none of the regulation: data centers, specifically ones designed to support and run AI processing. 

Traditional data centers are mainly located in Texas and California, but as the demand for more AI in society grows, the demand for more data centers grows too.

That’s why over $200 billion worth of data centers are being built throughout many southern states like Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia and South Carolina, according to a published report by Media Justice. 

It’s also why we need to stop this rapid expansion of data centers now and bring strict regulation to policy before the communities they’re residing in are irreversibly damaged. 

It needs to stop because this current expansion of data centers is similar to mold–similar to the one that grows in a basement because it’s been ignored.

In the short term, the mold will exist and keep developing slowly, but since nothing immediately happens, nothing changes.

Eventually, it becomes toxic black mold, someone is forced to act and the damage is already done.

But at least something was done. 

If we are able to act against mold, then why can’t we act against unregulated corporate expansion when we know how harmful it is? 

I’m not saying that all data centers are akin to toxic fungi, because some are necessary to the internet’s function and continual growth.

What I am saying is this current expansion is developing like black mold because these projects are poisoning the communities they are built in.

So, why is no one fighting back? 

It is because these companies are exercising their will against the most vulnerable communities.

Looking at a map where current data centers are built, many of them inhabit rural and low-income areas that already lack resources, but why? 

Dr. Carmen Reese Foster, an associate professor of social work at Belmont University, explains why these communities are often targeted by big companies looking for rapid expansion. 

“When you are going into a community that is desperate, a community that already lacks 

financial resources, educational resources, environmental resources, and when you promise them resources, you’re able to galvanize and mobilize support that's not really authentic because you’re promising something that you’re not going to deliver,” Foster said. 

When a community is desperate, they’ll do anything to bring economic growth, even if that means the community is harmed. 

Even if that means the companies suck water out of the ground like a giant straw, steal power from houses, and emit noises so loud people can’t sleep at night. 

It’s seen as a small price to pay for long-term growth. 

But history shows that long-term health outcomes such as cancer, chronic illness, and a lack of upward mobility are the direct results. 

That’s why affluent areas are not as affected, because they have enough power and money to fight back. 

But not everyone has that privilege, and many residents are upset and powerless. 

Or that’s what the companies want you to believe, because they know that if people feel powerless, they won’t feel the true power they possess. 

The truth is that these companies need the land more than anyone needs AI, which puts the power in the hands of everyday people to make a change – not in the hands of “a few great 

men” like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel or Sam Altman to steer our future. 

While Odell may see the future for Boxtown as nothing but a bleak repeat of the past, similar afflicted communities can start leading the charge. 

By rising up as a collective community, the majority of data companies will have to pay attention.

By politicians pushing for transparency and accountability, these companies will have to follow the rules. 

By customers boycotting their products and hurting their bottom line, these companies will finally get in line.

The companies running these data centers will stop working in the shadows, start paying their fair share of the electricity bill and start treating the communities they inhabit less like a mine and more like a home. 

If that happens, then the dream Odell had as a child about watching Boxtown grow and prosper can become a reality. 

But the only way that reality can come true is if we collectively wake up, take a stand against the mold that’s harming our health and stop the spread before it’s too late.

Written by Seth Thorpe