As the artificial intelligence (AI) industry expands and large-scale data centers continue to be built across the United States, concerns are growing that communities of color are bearing the environmental burden first.
On the 8th (local time), Axios said civic groups criticized that AI infrastructure, like existing industrial facilities, is concentrated in socially and economically vulnerable areas, deepening "environmental inequality."
Large-scale data centers are facilities that require massive amounts of water, electricity, and land. Civic groups noted that such facilities are mainly being built in Black and Latino neighborhoods already suffering from air pollution and clusters of industrial sites. They said the pattern from past highway, refinery, and manufacturing infrastructure—where polluting facilities concentrate in areas with weak political resistance and low real estate values—is repeating with AI infrastructure. There are also warnings that a single data center consumes electricity on the level of a small city and uses thousands of tons of water a day, which can drive up local residents' water and power expense.
At the center of the controversy is Elon Musk's AI corporations xAI. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has taken legal action over a supercomputer data center xAI is pushing in southwest Memphis, Tennessee, where the share of Black residents is high. The NAACP raised the issue of increased pollution, saying the facility's gas generators violate the Clean Air Act. According to Time, nitrogen dioxide levels near the data center increased by up to 79%, and the area is already known for high rates of asthma and respiratory illnesses. xAI explained that with additional equipment it would "build the lowest-emission facility in the United States," but the controversy has not subsided.
Similar conflicts are emerging in Texas, Virginia, Arizona, and Florida. In Amarillo, Texas, a project billed as the world's largest AI data center faced strong opposition amid concerns that it could accelerate the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, the region's key groundwater source. Northern Virginia is already the world's largest data center hub, but Black communities said "the area is being overwhelmed by expansion work." In the Latino-concentrated area near Tucson, Arizona, there was continued pushback that a planned new data center could consume thousands of tons of water each year, adding to the burden on a region where heat, drought, and economic vulnerability overlap.
In St. Lucie County, Florida, a data center development plan also met fierce community opposition. Latrischea Adams, head of the Memphis-based environmental group Young, Gifted & Green, said, "Data centers don't create many jobs and tend to target economically vulnerable cities," adding, "What's happening now will set the standards for future data center regulations."
Some Indigenous groups, mainly in the West, criticized AI data centers as a "modern-day resource extraction industry," saying they are using resources such as water and land on a large scale without the consent of the tribes.
The NAACP said it will soon hold a strategy meeting in Washington, D.C., bringing together figures from the environment, technology, and civil rights fields. They plan to discuss policy and legal response strategies related to AI data centers.