Technology Policy Brief #155 | Mindy Spatt | September 4, 2025
Summary
Artificial Intelligence is more ubiquitous in our daily lives than you may realize. It drives the constant stream of personalized ads, instant navigation directions when driving, voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa, shows up first in our Google searches, and much more. The massive data centers powering all that instant intelligence are less visible to those of us who use it the most. But they have become ubiquitous in lower-income communities of color, communities with the least access to high-speed home internet and some of the worst air pollution in the country.
Analysis
I asked AI itself how great its need for electricity is. It told me data centers use around 1% to 1.5% of the world’s electricity, and that energy needs are doubling rapidly. Data Centers suck up water as well; a mid-sized data center (most are super-sized) uses as much water as 1,000 households in a single day.
What does this mean for the communities the data centers are located in? Diminishing water resources, more air pollution, and higher electric rates. That is because infrastructure costs are paid by all customers, including those who are low-income or energy-insecure, even though they use only a tiny fraction of what a data center uses. What’s worse, utilities may offer large data centers attractive rates that are subsidized by other customers.
State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, represents a low-income, mostly African American district that is home to 33 gas turbines that fuel a massive data center owned by Elon Musk. It also has many industrial facilities and severely polluted air. In a recent interview, he said “It’s no coincidence that if you are African American in this country, you’re 75% more likely to live near a toxic hazardous waste facility, It’s no accident that in this community, we’re four times more likely to have cancer in our bodies.” Musk’s data center uses enough electricity to power around 100,000 homes.
According to the Climate Justice Alliance the reasons Black communities are getting stuck with the worst impact of AI include:
- Energy production and other polluting industries are already disproportionately located in their communities, and they are already feeling the impacts of climate change.
- As data centers drive up electric rates, more Black households have trouble paying their bills and become energy insecure..
- Jobs often held by lower income people such as food service workers, are in the greatest danger of being replaced by AI.
Furthermore, they point out, while Internet access is essential for access to jobs, education and government programs, 38% of black people in the rural South still don’t have internet at home, so it could be said that the communities the data centers are built in benefit the least from whatever advantages AI has to offer.
Communities Resisting the Tide
Local advocates are demanding solutions. States and municipalities have the power to regulate where data centers are located and to consider the overall environmental impacts rather than approving them in a vacuum. Climate goals should not be abandoned, as Google and other companies are doing. Electric and water rates can be adjusted to account for the enormous burden data centers place on infrastructure.
Activist organization Color of Change has launched a campaign to get Congress members from the South to Hold hearings on the link between AI, data center expansion, and rate hikes, and require racial and environmental impact reviews before any more data centers are approved.
While localities and states can still act, the federal picture is bleak. The Clean Air and Clean Water Act is being abandoned, and the agency supposed to protect people from polluters the Environmental Protection Agency is being gutted and Tech companies have Trump’s ear and he’s got theirs.
Engagement Resources
Are Your Chats With Chat GPT, CoPilot and Gemini Fueling the Climate Crisis? March 28, 2025,
https://climatejusticealliance.org/ai/
Black Tech Agenda: Advancing Equity and Reimagining Technology, https://colorofchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/BTA-Report-V6-12-11-24-19-13.pdf
Data Center Boom Risks Health of Already Vulnerable Communities, Cecelia Marrinan, June 12, 2025, https://www.techpolicy.press/data-center-boom-risks-health-of-already-vulnerable-communities/