There is an important issue that’s getting overlooked, possibly because we’re all overwhelmed by the torrent of lunacy coming out of Washington, D.C. But it’s a real problem that’s happening all over the country: Massive AI data centers are being approved and built at a prodigious rate, and they are overloading power grids, consuming massive amounts of water, and polluting the air we breathe.
In Nevada, for example, the state’s largest utility says it will need to generate three times the electricity it uses to power Las Vegas just to handle the state’s new data centers. The utility added that it would be forced to increase its use of fossil fuels, including coal. Nevada is one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the U.S. thanks to its cheap land and tax breaks for the centers.
In North Carolina, another state that has passed economic incentives to lure data centers, lawmakers are debating how to balance clean energy goals with the possible economic benefits of AI facilities. And in Arizona, legislators have already abandoned the state’s clean-emission goals because utilities are unable to meet data center power demands under current standards.
Those are just three examples, but as they say, “all news is local.” Residents of this corner of the Mid-South regularly read and hear about how Elon Musk’s sprawling xAI computer farms are eating up acreage on both sides of the Mississippi-Tennessee state line. Musk claims his Colossus 1 is the world’s largest computer — but it’s apparently not big enough. Colossus 2 is under construction and a proposed Colossus 3 is in the works, both in North
Mississippi.
Residents there are fighting to stop xAI from using (and adding more) methane-powered turbines to keep the data centers running. The turbines create noise and air pollution around the clock, 24-7. Those living near the facilities complain of breathing problems, inability to sleep, and loss of property values. Lawsuits have been filed. Over in South Memphis, residents are battling the same issues.
As Musk’s data centers encroach on the landscape and foul the atmosphere, battle lines have been drawn. On one side are average citizens in modest neighborhoods dealing with poisonous air and unrelenting noise and massive, soulless buildings. On the other side, you have the world’s richest man, aligned with city leaders who for the most part seem to have put “economic growth” over the well-being of many who live here.
The kicker, of course, was the report in the Daily Memphian last week that xAI had put the wastewater plant that Musk had promised to build in order to get permission to move xAI here, “on pause.” Meaning, his Colossus data centers would continue to use billions of gallons of pure Memphis aquifer drinking water to cool its infernal machines, instead of the recycled “gray water” that would come from an xAI-built facility.
Thankfully, there was a flurry of protestation from various local officials and environmentalists and Musk issued a statement that the company was “still committed” to the wastewater facility, but he did not “commit” to a date for resumption of construction of the plant, or for its completion. Which is a big problem.
Musk has broken promises to local and state governments everywhere he’s set up business. He’s on record as opposing environmental regulations, and his companies routinely ignore them: Musk’s Tesla polluted in Florida; the Boring Company polluted in Las Vegas; SpaceX polluted on the Texas coast; and here in Memphis, xAI’s turbines are flouting EPA air standards as you read this. Memphis leaders need to nail down a completion date for that water plant, and put firm (and enforceable) penalties in place for non-compliance.
But what’s most concerning to me is that no one seems to be able to define what the actual end goal is in this mad race for AI supremacy. Will AI just continue to incrementally improve on what it is — a semi-reliable research tool that can’t accurately reproduce an image of a hand? Or will it become a master-genius-brainiac intelligence machine that will cure disease and end war and eliminate poverty?
Or is it all just a Ponzi scheme being played with public money and public utilities that enables billionaire oligarchs to make more billions while the rest of us battle it out for breathable air and clean water?