The massive data centers needed to run AI systems are rapidly altering geographical landscapes and communities. That’s especially true in the U.S. South, where many states are dominated by large, investor-owned utilities and land and other natural resources are still relatively available.
“Data centers are proliferating alongside the explosive growth of cloud computing and AI technologies,” says Kristin Phillips, associate professor of anthropology at Emory University. “People are raising concerns about who is reaping the benefits of these facilities and who is bearing the economic and environmental costs.”
Phillips, a sociocultural anthropologist who studies the social context of energy and infrastructure, is digging deeply into these questions and their implications for the U.S. South, funded by a $1 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Her co-principal investigators on the grant are Jola Ajibade, Emory associate professor of environmental sciences, and Gabe Schwartzman, assistant professor of geography and sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Cathy Kunkel, from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, and Nikki Luke, a human geographer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will serve as consultants to the co-investigators.
The three-year project will research the current and potential effects of data centers on electricity costs for individual ratepayers, structural changes to how energy is supplied and consumed, and issues of environmental and social justice. The researchers will conduct case studies for three states: Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee.
They will combine qualitative and quantitative methods, drawing data from interviews, surveys, official documents, cost analyses, focus groups and ethnography to consider the perspectives of utilities, state and local officials, workers, community organizations and residents.
Existing and planned data center sites will be mapped and made available online. These maps will be overlaid with demographic data on the surrounding communities.
The researchers will also develop a comparative analysis of the regulatory and policy landscapes across the three states to identify best practices. The different stakeholders will be actively engaged in all aspects of the work, from project scoping to implementing research plans and disseminating the results.
“AI and data mark a new gold-rush era in our world,” says Ajibade, who studies environmental justice, energy transitions and societal transformations. “Like past booms, this one carries economic, social, energy and environmental costs. The critical question is not just how fast data centers are expanding, but who benefits and at what cost.”
Data centers are critical to IT infrastructure, housing high-powered computing systems needed to support everyday digital services, from streaming movies to social media and e-commerce. The growing use of AI and machine-learning workloads is accelerating the deployment of data centers for high-performance computing systems.
Proponents of these facilities point to the development of IT infrastructure and the tax revenue they generate for communities. Opponents point to reports of noise and light disturbances from nearby residents, and the potential for long-term economic and environmental consequences stemming from the enormous amounts of water and energy needed to run the facilities.
Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee offer unique perspectives to shed light on the potential impacts of data centers throughout the South, Phillips says.
- Virginia has the world’s highest concentration of data centers, representing 13% of data center operational capacity globally and 25% capacity in the Americas, a legislative audit found. In 2023, Virginia became the country’s top importer of electricity from other states to try and meet the surging demand in commercial power consumption, according to the S. Energy Information Administration.
- Georgia is emerging as one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the United States, fueled by tax incentives, ample land, energy resources and a lack of restrictive legislation. Metro Atlanta is second only to Northern Virginia in total primary market inventory of data centers, according to the commercial real estate services firm CBRE. Some communities, however, have started to push back against the boom.
- In Tennessee, data centers are also being built at a dramatic pace and scale, helping to fuel the largest expansion of fossil-fuel energy generation assets in the country. A data center housing a supercomputer for Elon Musk’s company xAI in Memphis is a high-profile example. Emissions from the unpermitted gas turbines powering the center have drawn the concern of environmentalists and nearby residents of Boxtown, a low-income, predominantly Black community, Ajibade notes.
“Data centers are an increasing part of a world in which we are so connected and so much of our life is online,” Phillips says. “It’s important to be aware of how decisions are being made about where data centers are being built, what conditions and processes are involved, and how they will affect our energy system and its future.”
The Sloan Foundation is a not-for-profit, mission-driven grantmaking institution dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge.