Hastily built to meet skyrocketing demand for computing power required by the global artificial intelligence race, these data centers are facing opposition across the United States.Teenager Jasmine Bernard, who lives in a neighborhood bordering Boxtown, has been fighting for two years against the gas turbines that power the data center and spew emissions into the air.
Student and clean-air advocate Jasmine Bernard has been fighting for two years against gas turbines used for data centers that are spewing emissions into the air © Archana THIYAGARAJAN / AFP
The people of South Memphis have suffered through years of pollution from factories in Boxtown, founded by freed slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.The risk of developing cancer here is four times higher than the national average."This community of Boxtown and South Memphis as a whole historically just has been the subject of environmental neglect," the 17-year-old Bernard told AFP. "It's deeply tied to the history... it's been a Black community for centuries."KeShaun Pearson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution, has been criss-crossing the country to raise awareness about the environmental dangers of data centers and speak about Boxtown, which he says has been abandoned by local officials.Pearson says Colossus I, the name of SpaceXAI boss Elon Musk's first mega AI supercomputer facility is "a textbook case of what it looks like when elected officials make promises about economic mobility.""They don't listen or involve the community or the people who are going to be directly impacted," he said.Behind him, a sign on a fence reads "Private Property." In the distance lie, about 10 turbines and vast warehouses filled with Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs).
