The Data Center Debate Is Divorced From the Facts

As the build-out of AI data centers has accelerated, the public has tended to focus on every possible downside of these industrial projects.

Some wariness—about the developments and the companies behind them—is sensible.

As with almost any new industrial development, and depending on where they are built and how they are powered and cooled, data centers pose risks of excessive carbon-dioxide emissions and noise pollution.

But the panic about the harms of these projects has well outpaced the evidence.

In my years researching and reporting on AI and the environment, with support from a grant from Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), I’ve noticed that misconceptions abound.

This panic, moreover, is leading communities to forgo massive amounts of tax revenue—largely because of threats that are inflated, confused, and sometimes nonexistent.

The trade-offs are real.

In June, a Massachusetts city near where I grew up blocked a data center, in large part out of concern over the amount of water the development would use and pollute.

Data centers do need a lot of water to cool their equipment, and—as with most industrial building projects—constructing these developments can introduce chemical additives into the local wastewater.

But there are no confirmed cases of this data-center pollution harming people, and this city specifically has abundant fresh water. [ Elias Wachtel: The data-center panic is overblown ] Most of the fear about water seems to be the product of misunderstood details from news reports, spread like a game of telephone.

The New York Times published a story last year about a Georgia couple whose water taps at home went dry after Meta broke ground on a $750 million data center nearby.

The couple suggested that Meta’s construction created a buildup of sediment in the water, which caused water-pressure problems and damaged their well (many homes in the area use well water).

Whether the construction actually caused these problems remains unclear, but the story is often read as evidence of the harms of data centers.

Yet sediment buildup in groundwater is a standard construction risk, and most places don’t ban large buildings over it.