Video above is a slightly wonky but rewarding summary of the challenges of building AI at scale – something that is happening at a furious pace all over the planet, that none of us can opt out of, and we had better understand.
The challenge to the climate agenda at a moment where Epstein Class fossil fuel interests are choking clean energy development, is daunting.
The data center gold rush continues to be mind-boggling.
Last week, my colleague Sharon Goldman learned that Meta has bought about 1,400 acres—an area almost twice the size of Central Park—next to its already massive 2,250-acre Hyperion AI data center site in Louisiana. It’s a reminder that the data center story is a real estate story: Sharon points out that the total site is now more than twice the size of the nearest international airport in New Orleans.
It’s a serious bet on Meta’s part, as Sharon writes:
The apparent expansion of Meta’s already enormous project offers a window into how the AI infrastructure boom is unfolding across the U.S. Hyperscalers—the Big Tech companies building out their AI infrastructure—are racing to lock up land, power, and financing for massive AI data-center campuses, often through debt-financed, politically sensitive expansions. Some, like the Louisiana project, are expanding so quickly that it may be difficult for local communities to spot or register concerns in real time.
In December 2024, Meta announced it was breaking ground on a $10 billion AI data center in Holly Ridge, an unincorporated community in Richland Parish, a rural county in northeast Louisiana. The facility was planned to span over 4 million square feet. To meet the energy demands, utility Entergy planned to construct three new natural gas plants near the site at a cost of $3 billion.
The original 2,250-acre project is nearly five miles long and a mile wide—already almost three times the size of Central Park. More than 3,700 construction workers have been working on the site, with reported plans for that number to climb to 5,000. And beyond the temporary employment created by the construction project, the company said it would create 500 new full-time, long-term jobs at the data center in the struggling, economically depressed area.
Now it appears that Meta has laid the financial groundwork for a much larger Hyperion build-out than originally planned.
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Daunting.
But at least one player who arguably knows some things about data centers, scale and AI, seems to think solar is still going to blow away all competitors in power generation over time.
That is somewhat at odds with the current status of Musk’s Memphis Data Center operation, which is reliant on
The NAACP on Friday threatened to sue Elon Musk’s AI company xAI, claiming that gas turbines powering a company data center are polluting communities in Mississippi and Tennessee.
“Our communities are not playgrounds for corporations who are chasing profit over people. xAI’s first data center is already creating pollution for Mississippi’s neighbors in Memphis — a community already suffering from decades of disparity — and now they are polluting in Southaven, Mississippi,” NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Director Abre’ Conner said in a statement.
At issue are 27 gas turbines installed by xAI near its second data center Colossus 2 in Southaven, Miss. These turbines “emit smog-forming pollution, fine particulate matter, and hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde,” which can cause health problems including asthma, respiratory illness and certain cancers, the NAACP said.
“Together, xAI’s 27 unpermitted turbines in Southaven have the potential to emit a staggering amount of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx), likely making the facility the largest industrial source of NOx in the 11-county Memphis metropolitan area,” the organization stated.
Conner said the NAACP “will not stand by idly.”
“We cannot allow for companies to promise a better future while pumping harmful chemicals into the air we breathe,” she added. “We demand that xAI follow the Clean Air Act and stop operating these unpermitted turbines to protect the people of Southaven.”