Nobody Here Wants the Data Center: An Oral History

Your computer screen might be where you interact with Claude or ChatGPT, but it’s not where those AI models do their work. For that, look to the massive data centers that house training and cloud-compute operations. It’s a funny thing: The more people learn about AI and its environmental costs (not to mention the prognostications of the companies whose fortunes rest on it), the more they don’t want those data centers anywhere near them. In a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans oppose data center construction in their area; now, J.J. Anselmi talks to folks around the country who are fighting against such construction. Looks like we finally found an issue that brings everyone together.

Our elected officials who were meeting with Amazon all signed NDAs for how much water it would use to cool their servers. They have open-loop systems here. My question to them was and still is: How are we supposed to know if they’re getting close to the limitations of our freshwater aquifer if we don’t know how much water they’re using? They just say, “Oh, we’ll know. Don’t worry.” Yeah, right. That’s what I’m worried about. I’m always asking them, what’s so “Colonel Sanders’s 11 secret herbs and spices” about how much water they use to cool their servers? We have a right to know.

Amazon has tried to win us over by doing “nice things” for us. Over the holidays, we have a town potluck banquet where everyone brings a dish, but this year Amazon brought all the food. On Facebook, people were saying, “Isn’t this wonderful? Amazon is bringing food to the banquet for everybody!” I guess all they had to do was feed people for them to forget everything they’re doing to us. That one really got me.