The Unsustainability of the AI Boom

The birth of AI has brought a new wave of data center construction from major tech companies like Google and Meta, with many others building or planning thousands across the United States. Even some states like Utah, where billionaire Kevin O’Leary’s proposed 41,200-acre “Project Stratos” data center is set to take place, have offered large tax exemptions and incentive packages to new data center construction. To put into perspective, that’ll likely total to be over $1 billion subsidizing a data center 137% the size of Manhattan.

When you look across the nation at where new data centers are being built, a familiar pattern begins to emerge. Big tech companies and industry groups lobby state governments for favorable tax incentives before projects move into small, rural communities, where local officials, eager for new economic activity and tax revenue, are the only ones given the authority to vote down a project. However, all of that economic activity is frontloaded. Once construction is complete, even the largest data centers require very few jobs day to day. Not to mention that in most of these towns, tech companies are not even hiring local labor for construction and are instead pulling from other states and large firms.

Once completed, they have huge downsides. First, they’re huge resource consumers. Land, water, energy—you name it. These corporations have been buying up farmland and plots adjacent to residential subdivisions to throw up their buildings, which are already bigger than warehouses, to store their servers. Their servers run 24 hours a day and require constant electricity and water to keep from overheating. It’s not a small amount of water or electricity either. These servers handle astounding amounts of data that need the lion’s share of these utilities. Residents living near data centers have found their homes’ water pressure to be very weak, if running at all. What water remains is full of sediments not safe for cooking or drinking. Electricity bills have also skyrocketed as the data centers hog much of the existing grid. In fact, data centers are so big, many have personal generators for additional power consumption.

Being in such close proximity to data centers presents serious health risks. The generators these data centers possess burn fossil fuels that worsen local air quality with carbon emissions that negatively affect respiratory health. The centers themselves are huge sources of noise pollution. Videos from communities all across the country have gone viral documenting a distinct, noticeable hum that runs 24/7. Such noise pollution mentally disrupts humans and animals alike. Clayton Tucker, a cattle rancher in Texas who lives close to a data center, recently shared that none of his cows have birthed healthy calves since the center opened.

Besides these obvious downsides, big tech corporations seem to disregard opposition when it comes to expanding their services. Many videos of local town hall meetings have circulated on the internet showing that residents are overwhelmingly against the construction of data centers, but their city councils almost always unanimously approve construction. Unfortunately, most small towns have been unable to halt construction after voting out their council members and replacing them with individuals who oppose construction. The Nashville Zoo has even pleaded with residents to protest a planned data center that would open adjacent to the habitats of endangered species on the basis that it would disrupt breeding programs and the animals’ mental health.

What’s even scarier is that the Trump administration has taken measures to label opposition to data centers and criticism of AI as “anti-tech extremism.” In Claremore, Oklahoma, farmer Darren Blanchard was arrested and jailed for speaking 5 seconds over his allotted time in a city council meeting while protesting a proposed 300-acre data center in his community, despite other people in the meeting speaking out in favor of the project and being allowed to go 30–40 seconds overtime. The feds have also begun monitoring posts and users with negative perceptions of AI and have vowed surveillance. It’s also no help that thousands of Flock cameras are now being installed across the country to monitor citizens on the basis of “public safety.” Just like data centers, communities are being asked to accept the physical and social costs of Flock cameras against their own will. It seems more and more that the United States is imitating the Chinese model of mass surveilling its own citizens and handing out repercussions for political dissent.

That makes sense why the most common rationale for expansion by American leaders and politicians has been under the guise of surpassing China in the development of AI; however, the United States is already ahead of China by more than 3,000 operating data centers. Even if that weren’t the case, the current way in which they are built and operate is completely unsustainable and needs to change. This truly is a global problem that we will face in the upcoming century, and hopefully we can come together as a society with a better solution for the future of our world.

—Esen Yildirim

CITATIONS:

“THE REAL SAFETY RISKS OF DATA CENTERS: WHAT LOCAL COMMUNITIES NEED TO KNOW.”

https://conimby.org/blog/2025/09/12/the-real-safety-risks-of-data-centers-what-local-communities-need-to-know/

“AI data centers’ “infrasound” pollution linked to nausea, insomnia in nearby residents”

https://epawatch.org/2026-05-29-data-centers-infrasound-pollution-linked-to-nausea-insomnia.html

‘Anti-tech extremism’: The government is monitoring AI criticism nationwide, says report