The public health cost of AI data centers

An AI data center in Memphis is draining water and releasing pollutants. City officials must reign in its operations before the damage is done.

By Laniah Bowdery

In the heart of Memphis, Tenn. stands a community that faces a cancer risk four times the national average. Boxtown is a majority African American community, with median incomes averaging around $30,000 — too low for housing, groceries, and other necessities, as research shows. An average Memphian needs to make $85,000 a year to live comfortably. That leaves Boxtown residents trapped by economics in an environment that is undermining their health.

The tech company xAI has built an enormous data center known as Colossus on the outskirts of Boxtown. It may be creating economic opportunities, but Colossus is draining massive amounts of water and energy and releasing pollutants.

Boxtown residents are tired, and I don’t blame them. Residents of Boxtown should be allowed to make choices for their health, and economic decisions for the improvement of their community, after years of different facilities plaguing them with pollution. This means giving them a voice in where and whether the new development of a data center is placed in their community. A choice would provide them with autonomy instead of fueling their exploitation.

Controversy has erupted over the data center’s permitting process. Community representatives say the company built more turbines than it received permits for, though Memphis Mayor Paul Young contends that the xAI leadership team told him that only 15 of its 33 turbines would be in operation. Instead, all 33 run daily, adding to the already existing pollutants. This is an issue because the Environmental Protection Agency puts guidelines into place as to how many pollutants can be produced and released into the air at a time. xAI is operating in a grey area, where there is a lack of clarity between its leadership, Memphis city officials, and Boxtown residents. Without full information, residents are unable to make proper decisions.

Placing Colossus in Boxtown, Memphis was intentional environmental racism, a form of systemic oppression in which environmental hazards are placed  in minoritized communities. Boxtown was founded in the 1860s by and for formerly enslaved people and freedmen and thus had a majority African American population. The city has neglected Boxtown from the beginning, not providing residents with water, plumbing, or electricity services until 1975, years after residents began to pay city taxes. Boxtown stands for freedom in all its forms yet has been disregarded by city officials as disposable. The Data center could have been placed anywhere else, but was placed in Boxtown.

“They don’t have to be built in a place full of vulnerable populations,” says Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. “There’s plenty of land to build data centers.”

Residents of Boxtown have expressed their concerns about xAI being allowed to continue operating gas turbines in their community. Residents worry about their air quality and the ways that the health of their community will get worse. They are begging for city officials to care about their wellbeing. They do not want the data center in their community and for health reasons residents should be provided with more transparency and stake in the decision-making process.

Health professionals in Memphis fear the turbines are already exerting a negative influence on local health. “I’ve seen children come in frequently to the emergency department with asthma exacerbations, and most of them are Black and Brown children from low income neighborhoods across Memphis,” says Dr. Austin L. Dalgo, an internal medicine/pediatric specialist. “I’ve seen children die from asthma.”

Constant exposure to environmental hazards strains the community’s health. The City Health Dashboard for Memphis shows that people in this area experience more frequent levels of physical distress, high blood pressure, and lower life expectancy. Officials must consider the residents of Boxtown, and their concerns which are grounded in fact and lived experiences. Instead, the city chooses to greenlight permits and turn a blind eye to the actions of those overseeing Colossus’s management for economic opportunity in the city and to turn Memphis into a hub for digital innovation and industrial revitalization. Officials are selling out their own residents for profit.

The cost of energy is a huge concern when it comes to data centers. Communities must make changes to their power grids to host these buildings. Data center’s energy usage adds more negative effects on the community. The energy use and infrastructure upgrades equals higher prices of energy and furthers climate change. As Boxtown residents already make below the poverty line on average, it can be harder on their wallets to pay for raised energy prices and ultimately the city ends up footing the cost. There is no clear transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy. The data centers reverse progress that cities make and exacerbate an already extreme climate crisis.

Of course, there are arguments as to how these data centers help local economies. There is no doubt that xAI could bring new jobs and even new people to the city. New jobs and people lead to improvements in the economy. They increase the circulation of money in the city with more money being made and spent. Other data centers also have sources of energy not harmful to the communities they are located in. Some run on green energy, finding ways to reduce their carbon footprint and pollutant output while still meeting growing energy needs. However, this is not the case for most of these centers. AI is a new industry, and many are operating unregulated by local rules and environmental laws put in place to protect residents. This harms communities and the long-term interest of the environment. xAI is one of them, choosing to rely on gas turbines instead of clean energy in order to rush the development of Colossus.

AI data centers will cost more than they are worth according to a paper quantifying the public health cost of the centers. Researchers found that data centers operating with pollutants, even if below the permitted level, will have a public health cost of up to $2.2-3.0 billion per year. This cost falls onto consumers as much as it falls onto city officials and taxpayers. The quantification does not account for the many data centers that are operating over the permitted level of pollutants.  

The public health impact, energy usage, and multiple pollutants that stem from Colossus overshadow the possible positive outcomes of placing the data center in Memphis. Residents of Boxtown are no stranger to systemic neglect. To them xAI is not just opportunity, but also a death sentence. It is another obstacle between them and a long, healthy life. Health is a human right and xAI is actively infringing upon the rights of the humans in Boxtown. The residents should have a role in the decision-making process, and the choice is clear. Without transparency and regulation xAI should not exist in their community at the cost of their health and their quality of life.