Across the US, Activists Are Organizing to Oppose Data Centers

Summary

Podcast Summary: Across the US, Activists Are Organizing to Oppose Data Centers

The Tech Policy Press Podcast
Host: Justin Hendricks
Guests:

• Steven Renderos – Executive Director, MediaJustice
• Vivek Bharthana – No Desert Data Center Coalition, upcoming MediaJustice Data Center Fellow
  Date: September 14, 2025

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Overview

This episode dives into the surge of data center development across the U.S., the resulting public backlash, and how activists at both local and national levels are organizing to oppose this rapid expansion. Host Justin Hendricks speaks with two key figures: Steven Renderos, who brings a national racial-justice lens via MediaJustice, and Vivek Bharthana, who led a grassroots campaign opposing a major data center outside Tucson, AZ. The conversation covers environmental, social, economic, and democratic concerns, the political complexity of opposition, industry secrecy, the national narrative around AI and infrastructure, and emerging alternative visions for equitable economic development.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Data Center Boom & Public Backlash

• Massive investments: $6.7 trillion projected globally by 2030, over $1 trillion in the U.S. over five years ([00:30]).
• High-profile initiatives like the Stargate Project and multi-billion commitments from Big Tech highlight how central data centers are to AI and cloud ambitions.
• Communities are increasingly alarmed by resource use (water, power), environmental fallout, and secretive approval processes.

MediaJustice’s Evolving Role & Strategic Opposition

• Steven Renderos explains the organization’s shift from fighting media consolidation to tech accountability and, now, to targeting the infrastructure—especially data centers—that underpins AI ([02:10]):

  "The common through line...has been seeing the role that giant corporations are playing in really defining what media and technology does in our lives."

• Data centers became an urgent focus because of their outsized resource demands and the “bad deal” for host communities.

Tucson’s “No Desert Data Center” Victory & Ongoing Struggle

• Vivek Bharthana outlines the grassroots campaign against “Project Blue,” a planned Amazon data center on 290 desert acres ([05:03]):
  • Community first learned about the project only when a land sale was imminent.
  • Main concerns: climate-inept location (extreme heat), massive water and power use in a desert city already struggling with scarcity.
  • Board of Supervisors approved the land sale; coalition forced City Council to block water utility provision—a significant (if partial) win ([09:30]).
  • Now fighting at the state level as the utility pushes ahead without public water.

Cross-Ideological and Community Organizing

• Opposition doesn’t fall neatly along partisan lines; water and power bill increases resonate widely ([09:45]):

  "As soon as we made it clear...that power bills would go up, those were winning arguments." – Vivek ([10:44])

• The process’ secrecy (NDAs, surprise revelations about Amazon’s involvement) further unified opposition ([10:44], [18:36]).

The Southern U.S. as a “Sacrifice Zone”

• Steven details how data center and AI infrastructure concentrate in the South, echoing a history of extractive industries and environmental injustice ([13:09]):

  "The South is now becoming the next sacrifice zone and will become the heart of a lot of data center infrastructure." ([13:37])

  • Example: Memphis’s Black neighborhood, Boxtown, was targeted for a massive “Colossus” data center powered by controversial gas turbines ([14:30]).

The Secrecy Playbook of Big Tech

• Use of NDAs and closed-door deals to hinder opposition, both at the community and advocacy group level ([17:28]):

  "NDAs is very much a part of their playbook, but also I think writing the rules is very much a part of their playbook." – Steven ([19:59])

  • This opacity breeds mistrust and galvanizes community action.

Broader Community Concerns

• Beyond environmental issues, citizens express fears about jobs lost to AI, the expansion of surveillance (with Amazon/Palantir cited), and the exclusion of local Indigenous groups ([22:58], [23:36]).

  "There is that understanding among folks...I stand to lose my job because of facilities like this and because of generative AI." – Vivek ([23:40])

• Surveillance and displacement concerns unite multiracial coalitions, as data centers are grasped as nodes in a network of extractive, anti-democratic technology ([25:27]).

  "Local fights around data centers can be a way to also push back against that regression [towards authoritarianism]." – Steven ([26:28])

Educating and Equipping Activists for the Technical Fight

• Asymmetry in technical knowledge is a recurring challenge, but coalitions bridge gaps with local experts (academics, environmental orgs), investigative journalists, and national research partners like AI Now Institute ([28:00], [29:37]).
• Example: Water experts in Tucson informed the campaign ([32:54]).

  "Because water conservation is such a part of our daily lives here...it was unfathomable...the city would be prepared to give away so much..." – Vivek ([33:09])

Growing National Movement & Coordinated Resistance

• Multiple working groups and coalitions are emerging (Athena Coalition, Take Back Tech gathering) as the fight moves beyond localities to state and national levels ([34:42]):

  "...with data centers...the fight is everywhere...we do hope that more and more infrastructure comes together to help weave these fights together." – Steven ([36:00])

• The movement is intentionally decentralized to counter the centralization of Big Tech.

Challenging the National Security & Economic Narrative

• Tech industry is intentionally conflating their economic interests with national security; the “race with China” narrative is used to justify harmful trade-offs ([37:58], [38:43]):

  "There is a necessary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is a human sacrifice, that certain people are worth sacrificing for technological progress." – Steven ([39:25])

• Both guests argue communities of color and previously marginalized regions are paying the price for supposed “progress.”

Envisioning Equitable Alternatives

• Vivek calls for new, locally-rooted forms of economic development and investment—outside of Big Tech—so communities are not forced to “race to the bottom” for projects that harm them ([41:23]):

  "They also come with a lot of blood...they come with a requirement to sacrifice a lot." – Vivek ([41:56])

• Dream of locally responsive investment, where residents have material and civic stakes in the outcome ([43:44]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "AI relies upon real brick and mortar infrastructure...it's a raw deal for the communities that are building them." – Steven ([03:14])
• "We found out about it...shortly before the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to sell this parcel of land...to a corporation called Beale Infrastructure..." – Vivek ([05:16])
• "No is a complete sentence, and you can push back." – Steven ([14:51])
• "NDAs…race to the bottom…completely betrays their constituents and benefits these resource extractive corporations." – Vivek ([19:40])
• "This is the first tech issue I can really think of that's motivated people to get up and show up to a city Council meeting in the middle of the day." – Steven ([21:36])
• "It has everything. It really does." – Vivek (SNL's Stefon reference, underscoring the multi-faceted nature of opposition) ([27:48])
• "You can and should push back. You can and should say no." – Steven ([36:58])
• "The industry is coming here. We gotta prepare and we gotta make the best deal possible." – Local Official paraphrased by Steven ([15:54])
• "There is a necessary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is a human sacrifice, that certain people are worth sacrificing for technological progress." – Steven ([39:25])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:30 – Framing the explosion in data center investment and national context
• 02:10 – Steven on MediaJustice’s organizing evolution
• 05:03 – Vivek on the Tucson campaign’s local genesis
• 09:45 – Why opposition doesn't break down along predictable party lines
• 13:09 – Overview of the Southern U.S. as a new “sacrifice zone”
• 17:28 – Importance and impact of NDAs and secrecy in the process
• 23:36 – How generative AI, surveillance, and labor concerns unite opposition
• 29:37 – Activist strategies for focusing and debunking technical claims
• 34:42 – Rise of national coalitions and coordination
• 37:58 – Challenging the tech-national security narrative
• 41:23 – Seeking alternative, community-based economic futures
• 43:44 – Vision for local investment as an economy alternative to Big Tech

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Tone & Language

• The conversation is deeply rooted in activist skepticism and research, but remains open, thoughtful, and driven by a desire for more democratic, sustainable alternatives.
• Both guests use clear, concrete examples, mix personal anecdotes with systemic critiques, and frequently emphasize community agency.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode provides a robust, accessible, and nuanced look at why communities across the country are standing up to oppose the unchecked expansion of data centers, how they’re building power and knowledge, and what it means in the larger battles over technology, democracy, and economic justice. Activist voices underscore that “no is a complete sentence,” and that real progress means putting community interests and input first—even (and especially) when that runs counter to Big Tech’s preferred narrative.

Transcript

[A]

Your film is now ready to be shown.

[B]

Good morning.

[C]

I'm Justin Hendricks, editor of Tech Policy Press, a nonprofit media venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. Demand for computing power is fueling a massive surge in investment in data centers worldwide. The consultancy McKinsey estimates spending will hit 6.7 trillion by 2030, with more than a trillion expected in the US alone over the next five years. The scale of these capital expenditures is evident in headline grabbing projects like the Stargate initiative announced by President Donald Trump alongside executives from OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank the day after his inauguration, and in the multi billion dollar data center commitments from Microsoft, Amazon, Meta X and Google in recent months. As this boom accelerates, public scrutiny is intensifying. Communities across the country are raising questions about environmental impacts, energy demands, and the broader social and economic consequences of this rapid buildout. Technology firms and developers now face a maze of zoning battles, utility challenges and new regulations. To learn more about what's motivating efforts to oppose data centers, I spoke with two activists, one working at the national level and another organizing locally in their own community.

[A]

My name is Vivek Bharthana. I am a member of the no Desert Data Center Coalition and I'm actually about to start as Media Justice's data center fellow shortly here next week.

[D]

I'm Steven Randeros. I'm the executive director of Media Justice. Other affiliations I guess a former Tucsonan, which I guess is relevant for today's conversation.

[B]

I'm so pleased to have the two of you here. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the work that both of you have been doing with regard to data centers. But Steven, I do want to start with you and just how you kind of come to this work. Why Media justice feels the kind of political battle over data centers is one it needed to wade into.

[D]

You know, I'll give you the quick context for Media Justice. We historically were like a black led media accountability organization. We were founded way back in 2001 and at the time the focus was really to try to organize communities of color to fight back against the corporate consolidation of the media system. And that was particularly in the Bay Area. And eventually we took a national focus around that, but broadened kind of our horizon to focus on broader sets of issues related to communication rights. Right as the Internet was coming of age and as technology continued to evolve in large part like pushed forward by, by the Internet, our focus also shifted, moving from like fighting on affordable broadband issues to fighting against like high Tech surveillance to, you know, hate speech on online platforms. I think the common through line, through all of that work has been really seeing the role that giant corporations are playing and really defining what media and technology does in our lives. So last year we launched a new strategy called Shifting Terrain. And in that strategy we're hyper focused on how do we actually build the kind of power, community power we need to weaken. These giant corporations and data centers became very relevant front of the struggle because if you pay attention to what Microsoft and Google and Meta like, where they're investing the bulk of their capital, it's in building these data centers. So you have to ask yourself why? What's behind that for them? It's clearly an interest area because they're popping up in just about every community you can think of, from rural to urban centers. And so it felt like an important place for us to be paying attention to. And what we found is that in this moment where AI is everywhere, AI relies upon infrastructure, real brick and mortar infrastructure for it to accomplish some of the more complex things that tech giants like Sam Altman and Elon Musk are saying these devices, these tools can do. And it's a place where it's a raw deal for the communities that are building them. They're coming in with promises of jobs and economic development, but the reality is far different than that. And so we took it upon ourselves to play a role in helping to build the kind of community resistance and build on top of community resistance that's already there to try to fight the expansion of this kind of infrastructure, which really presents a bad deal for the communities that build them.

[B]

Vivek, I want to bring you in. You've just had experience with this type of battle. I want to ask you to just inform the listener a little bit about what's going on there in Tucson, about Project Blue and where things are at the moment.

[A]

Sure, yeah. Thanks, Justin, for having me on. So, yeah. I'm a member of the no Desert Data Center Coalition, which is a group of individuals. We don't have any formal organizational support and we've just. We're a group of Tucsonans who came together once we heard about this massive data center that was going to be built just east of Tucson, sitting on 290 acres of living desert space. And this happened. It started. I mean, what we know now is that this started a long time ago in 2023. But from. We found out about it in June and we found out about it shortly before the Pima County Board of Supervisors and Pima County Is where Tucson is before the board of supervisors voted to sell this parcel of land of 290 acres to a corporation called Beale Infrastructure, which is a subsidiary of this huge private banking firm called Blue Owl. And the crux of it was basically that they wanted to build this giant data center. They wanted to partner with tep, which is Tucson Electric Power, which is a private utility electricity company, and with Tucson Water, which is a public utility that supplies water to Tucson. And they wanted to use, you know, these data centers. They. They're basically these giant computers sitting in these warehouses and holding all of our cloud infrastructure. Right. So when you, when you think of the cloud, it's not some abstract thing sitting out there. It is. It is these very much real computers that, that occupy these giant buildings all over the country and all over the world. And this one was particular particularly egregious because these things generate a tremendous amount of heat. And they want to put this thing in the desert, which is already hot in June. When we found out about this, I think our temperatures were exceeding 105 already and they went up to 114 over the period of this campaign. And they wanted to cool it down with the precious water that is extremely scarce and that we're losing some of it. They wanted to use potable water for some of it. They wanted to use reclaimed water for that already has purposes and uses within Pima County. So that's how we found out about it. A bunch of us gathered, we went to the board of supervisors meeting, encourage them to vote no. Unfortunately, they did not. They voted 3, 2 to sell the. To sell the land. I. I'm just going to summarize here, but I would like to get back to the dynamics of that meeting a little bit later. And so at that point we knew that it wasn't just a group of us trying to get our board of supervisors to vote no. It became very real that this was going to be a campaign. So we organized with other, other coalitions that have already been forming in Tucson since inauguration and that predated inauguration, who've been organizing here for decades. And we came together and through a series of protests to. Through attending the public information sessions that the city of Tucson put together, which were really propaganda sessions that the city manager facilitated. We got the city council to vote no to annex the land that would have required. That was required in order to get Tucson water to supply water to the project. Unfortunately. Well, we were successful in voting, in getting city council to vote no. So that was a huge win. And that's the one you all heard about. And that. That made us flash. Unfortunately, now we're in a position where TEP has over. Over the wishes of. Of the people of Tucson, come into an agreement with Beale Infrastructure, that corporation, to go ahead and build the data center just without. Without water. We're not sure what exactly that look like. Looks like. We're not sure if they know what that looks like. But right now the process is with the state. The state corporation commission. And so that's going to be a much tougher fight for us. We're going to have to mobilize statewide for that.

[B]

And when you say without water, you mean without water from the public utility there?

[A]

Yeah, that's right. We're not sure if they're trying to find water of the same volume elsewhere. It's unlikely that they will be able to do that, or if they're changing up to another form of cooling these massive data centers that they're about to build.

[B]

And one thing that's been interesting to me in observing some of these points of opposition to data center development across the country has been that the politics aren't exactly as one might predict. Is that true there in Tucson?

[A]

It's absolutely true. And I think it's because, you know, the bottom line is we were able to lead with your power bills, and water bills are absolutely going to go up. This is what we know from other parts of the country, including our neighbors in Phoenix. Right. Like, what we know from Phoenix is that they've faced a tremendous amount of energy demand increase over the last few years. And what we've learned is that data centers cause 94% of that increased demand. If you take them out of it, just consumer demand, household demand remains pretty flat. But those consumers, because these are private electric companies in the state, including TEP and the one in Phoenix, all they have to do is is announce a rate hike and take it to the state corporation commission. And this corporation commission generally approves all these rate hikes. So we were able to explain that to folks. There's the power issue, there's the water issue. Right. Water is. Is a precious resource. It's a very incredibly scarce resource in the desert.

[B]

And.

[A]

And these were some of the easiest conversations I had with folks within 15 to 30 seconds. As soon as we kind of made it clear that they wanted to use Tucson water for this giant project to just cool these computers and that power bills would go up, those were winning arguments. Additionally, there was the secretive nature of the process just in terms of being hidden by NDAs. We didn't know who the company was until one of our fantastic local newspapers, Arizona Luminaria, broke that story that it was Amazon. You know, just the nature of these meetings where what struck me about that initial Board of Supervisors meeting where they voted to sell the land was that everyone who had time and space to talk and engage with the Board of Supervisors to speak at length, to present their crappy power presentations and get questions from Board of Supervisors, all of them were in favor of the project, right? They were all speaking on behalf of the project. They wanted it to go through. Everyone who spoke against the project and who wanted the city, who wanted this Board of Supervisors to vote no were community members. We were not paid speakers. We were not paid to be there, unlike the. The folks who were speaking on behalf of the project. And we were given two minutes to state our case. And, you know, I think we did a fantastic job under those circumstances.

[B]

Stephen, I want to come to you and bring us over to the American South. You write in the introduction to report from Bessemer, Alabama to Memphis, Tennessee, Local communities are showing up to call out the public health, environmental, and economic harms of data centers and the bulldozing of democratic processes to greenlight them. Tell us a little bit about what you've observed in these five states. Take us into perhaps one of them. I mean, we can pick one out to focus on. We've talked in this podcast before about what's happening, of course, around South Memphis. Folks who are listening might be aware of the very large Facebook data center that's under development in Louisiana and other projects in Georgia and South Carolina, Mississippi and elsewhere. But take us into the South.

[D]

The story of this report, which is titled the People say no, is both a story about in this moment of huge technological innovation and a push towards an AI arms race in the way that the President has talked about it in his AI Action plan. This is a story about who gets sacrificed along the way in that arms race. And for us, it was important to highlight the south, both because it is a region with a historical context of deep extraction, and it's also a region of historical resistance to that extraction. And around technology, the same story is playing out. It is both the place where many tech companies are moving towards. So it felt important for us to highlight that the south is now becoming the next sacrifice zone and will become the heart of a lot of data center infrastructure. And we're not just talking about the supercomputers, the warehouses for these computers, but we're also talking about the energy that's going to fuel them. What we're seeing all across the south is the construction of new methane gas pipelines, more gas refineries, coal plants coming back online who have been shut down because of their harmful polluting effects to the local community. We're seeing the construction now, an increase in nuclear reactors coming online after many decades of like a decline. And it's where these, this infrastructure is being built that was particularly important for us to highlight. I think Memphis is a great example in a historically black neighborhood box town where Elon Musk decided to build his giant, I think it's called Colossus Data Center. And in order to power it, they had been approved to run gas turbines. They decided to build 35 of them because that is how tech companies operate. They will come in and they will consistently push the boundaries and they will do so in a way and in a place where cancer rates are already high enough, as it is in Boxtown. And there's been a long historical environmental justice fight in that community in the region known as Cancer Alley down in Louisiana between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where many extractive plants have been built. It's also the place where Meta is investing a deep amount of infrastructure. And so it's only going to make those conditions worse. And it's happening in communities that are historically black. And I think that's like a really important thing to call out. Like, these tech companies are very intentionally building these things where they think there will be a path of least resistance. But what they're coming to find out and what. And even in Tucson and all across the country we're learning is that there is resistance possible to these things. Because, you know, one of the, one of the myths that tech companies sell us, that many politicians actually adopt is, is that these things are inevitable. The AI age is inevitable. The construction of these data centers is inevitable. I in fact actually remember in some of the messaging from like some of the city officials in Tucson, they were very much echoing this understanding that like, hey, look at Phoenix. They've built over a hundred data centers there. We only have seven. The industry is coming here. We gotta prepare and we gotta make the best deal possible. And what the no Desert Data Center Coalition proved is that in fact you can say no, no is a complete sentence and you can push back. And that's happening throughout the south as well, from North Carolina to Bessemer, Alabama to what we're seeing, the pushback in Memphis, to folks organizing in Baton Rouge, to folks organizing in Mississippi. And we wanted to call attention to that. And we also wanted to use this report honestly as a way to kind of throw up the bat signal so that folks can pull us in as an organization with a history of organizing as our primary methodology. We want to be in the fight with people, with groups. So we definitely encourage groups to read the report and to reach out to us. If you're looking to get down in a fight against a big tech corporation, because when you organize, we can win.

[B]

I want to focus on one of your calls to action, which Vivek has already brought up the kind of issue around NDA's secrets. It is, I suppose, you know, in their defense. A lot of economic development projects start with NDAs between corporations and local or other government entities, certainly with economic development entities. But in particular, these NDAs appear to be a sticking point in communities across the country, particularly when it comes to energy, you know, usage and generally plans, who the owners are ultimately of these massive facilities. That seems to be a kind of common thing that the biggest corporations want to hide their identity as long as they possibly can in these processes, I suppose in order to fend off political, you know, opposition or more scrutiny perhaps.

[A]

Do they.

[B]

Can you talk a little bit about how you all negotiated that, how you got to getting information and what that process of secrecy and kind of trying to pierce it meant for you as a, as an activist?

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good question. And you know, I think I'm still. Someone asked me a few weeks ago, like whether it would have made a difference if we didn't know it was Amazon. And I'm honestly not sure because I think the three main points we led with were the power, the water and the process. Right. So no matter what, this process was completely one sided. Even if we had known it was Amazon, it would have still been one sided. It just, it did help, it did make a difference. Just to know that the company behind this was a secret. And we didn't really understand why that was necessary. And most of all, we didn't understand how it was possible for our public institutions to actually agree to a process where that was not only hidden from us, the public, but was hidden from them. The county administration knew, knew who the corporation was. Our elected officials agreed to a process that the county administration set up for them where they didn't have all of the information that they needed to vote, but they voted anyway. And I think that's the kind of dynamic we're seeing across the country is that municipalities are engaging in this race to the bottom that completely betrays their constituents and benefits these resource extractive corporations.

[D]

It's interesting because, you know, with some history of like organizing against companies like Meta and Google, during the heyday of some of our work, trying to pressure these platforms to be more accountable to its users, they often had the playbook of inviting you into their headquarters and asking you to sign NDAs. Meadow was particularly famous for doing this. You would show up to Menlo park to learn about changes they're making to their content moderation policies and to their practices on how they deal with election disinformation, for example, and they'd want you to sign NDAs in order to get inside and you know, and be in the room. We always refuse to do that because there's just no way you're going to, you're going to tell me, you're going to give me information. I'm not going to go back to my community and tell them what's going on. And this is us, an organization, a nonprofit organization. And we got to demand that standard should be there and above that for public officials. Right? So NDAs is very much a part of their playbook, but also I think writing the rules is very much a part of their playbook. You know, Trump's AI action plan was written by tech billionaires. And that's as true at the federal level, but also at the local level. You know, I know Vivek shared with me, like how the local coalition folks were reacting to the city manager. I think he even mentioned it earlier where it's like the line he was pushing, the story he was telling, was the story that was being directly shaped by the tech companies themselves. And I think it's interesting to note, I think around data centers as well, that this is one of those issues that has tapped into something for people. And I'll say, like as a former Tucsonan, I still subscribe to the Nextdoor. I think I've shared this with Vivek. I still get a digest of like the top posts in my neighborhood and actually lived in East Tucson where the data center was going to be built. And the top post a few months ago was a post about the project Blue. And this is before anybody knew anything about Amazon. And you know, I can tell you from experience, like the top posts in that neighborhood are always like missing dogs, coyote sightings and porch pirates. And here, like, you know, as someone who's worked on tech issues for, for a while now, this is the first tech issue I can really think of that's motivated people to get up and show up to a city Council meeting in the middle of the day. So I think that's really important to note because I think it's clear to people the connection between the infrastructure, the tech and the harm that it will produce in a very material way. If it's taken away my water, if it's taken away my electricity, if it's eating up all this land and we're just giving it away and it's happening in a way in which like the public doesn't even get a say into, that's completely wrong. And that's motivating all kinds of people to show up to the fight, which is really exciting.

[B]

Let me ask a follow up question there. Maybe wondering about how in the communities you looked at in the south or Vivek there in Tucson, the extent to which community concerns are voiced that go beyond just energy, electricity, beyond just the kind of typical fears around construction or the sighting of these things. Are there broader concerns about AI's impact on labor, on the economy, on jobs, other types of concerns that you're seeing expressed, you know, not necessarily by, you know, yourselves as activists, but by the citizens around you?

[A]

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of folks, you know, we've been at one rally, someone walked up to me and was like, look, I'm a designer, I'm a graphic designer. I understand that there's not only an environmental impact because I live in the affected area, my parents live in the affected area, but I stand to lose my job because of facilities like this and because of generative AI. So I think there is that understanding among folks, you know, just, just by virtue of the fact that it was Amazon. When we found out it was Amazon, there were a couple of other angles to take too, including that Amazon works with Palantir on surveillance. Right. Not. It has been surveilling immigrants for years, which folks can learn more about in the no tech for ICE report that mi gente put out a few years ago. But now that now they're going to be surveilling US citizens as well. And that was a point we could make once, once we found out it was Amazon. Throughout this process, the local Tribal councils and indigenous people communities were completely left out of the process. And the Vasco Yaqui Tribe Nation and the Tohono Adam Nation. And yes, so the answer to your question is we have had folks join us because they're apprehensive about the quality of generative AI as it stands, its capacity to take jobs away. And yeah, just like what, what exactly it is that we're giving up this many resources for, for some folks who, like, you know, Trustee McMillan Cottam, just write as it's mid and it's just like not the quality is not worth the resources that we're giving up for it and that our communities are asked to give up for it.

[D]

In addition, I think something else that's really, I think shaped people's understanding of this moment has just been what we've seen happen nationally, politically, right? Like when, when a tech oligarchy shows up at inauguration and is sitting front row like that stands out. And they were a very key factor in the election of Donald Trump. And when you think about the agenda that administration has pushed forward, technology has played a very central role. The complete displacement and firing of federal workers, many of whom are being replaced with artificial intelligence, the deployment of ICE agents and ICE operations all across the country. It's both the actual agents on the ground, but it's the technology that's being used, like Palantir, to identify people and to track people down to surveillance technologies that are being used by federal and local law enforcement agencies to target and criminalize protests. And so I think some people are definitely making that connections. Particularly true in Louisiana, where we have good relationships with groups on the ground in New Orleans who are fighting, you're fighting surveillance tech of different forms. But they know that like the data that is collected through those technologies, it all lives somewhere. Like Vivek said, cloud infrastructure is not things in the cloud. It's actual brick and mortar. It's physical. And data centers are that site. And so folks are able to make that connection. But it's also what's interesting about data centers is it brings people from very different motivations to the table where you can build really interesting big tent like multiracial coalitions. And in a way, I think it's, I've seen it. I think seeing how people engaged in the fight in Tucson and in Bessemer, the way that people are engaging in their local democracies, which feels really important in this moment when just democracy in general is progressing towards authoritarianism, that these local fights around data centers can be a way to also push back against that regression.

[A]

I tell people sometimes it's like the Stefan character from snl. This has everything, it really does. It just brings to bed there's so many terrible things that we can all fight against.

[B]

I want to ask you a question about how you educate yourselves as activists around the technical claims that come along with data center development. I know there in Tucson, for instance, a lot of the discussion as you've already mentioned was around, you know, water usage. And there were, you know, different kind of proposals put forward about, you know, first, of course, rely on water that would come from sources that also supply drinking water. But then there are various claims made about eventually moving to a, you know, closed system and being able to go with a mechanism that would allow for much less water to be used or wastewater to be used. I don't necessarily want to, you know, litigate whether or not those claims are necessarily true or not. I'm more interested in asking you a kind of different type of question, which is about that asymmetry of kind of technical information about how these things are to work, how they may work in future, what the time horizons are for, different types of upgrades. I mean, a lot of times it seems like the data centers get built. And there are in some cases, as we've seen in Memphis, you know, as you mentioned, with the gas turbines, temporary solutions that are put in place. And the promise, of course, is that, you know, a cleaner technology will be installed eventually or built eventually to service those things. But how do you evaluate technical claims? As activists, who do you go to right now? Where are the sources of information that you can trust?

[D]

It's a great question, you know, for us as a. And I'll go ahead and out myself. I'm not a techie. I'm not a technologist. I am also not a policy monk. I come to this work as an organizer. That's my primary orientation. But one of the things that has really been key to our ability to organize around media and tech issues that, as you're describing, Justin, are like a moving target, right? Where there are claims of one thing and evolving technologies that shift into something else into something else. And they're new claims that we have to like to confront. You know, one of the. One of the things that's been key to our success has been our ability to also build with other national organizations as a racial justice organization. We have the ability to build on the ground with communities of color and to be trusted ambassadors of information for them. And we've been able to build bridges with national policy groups and research groups that are studying this in a myriad of ways. And in Tucson, in fact, this was beneficial. When we took a step in to support the no Desert Data Center Coalition, part of what we did was really help them debunk a lot of the public messaging and the marketing from the developer. We did that by pulling in national allies like the AI Now Institute that has done a ton of research on The AI industry and industrial policy, both here in the US but abroad. And so they're looking at the larger supply chain. And bringing in that perspective has been helpful. But also, as we've been connecting with different communities, there are regional players like the Southern Environmental Law Clinic that is, that is actually suing XAI at this moment. And their legal expertise has been beneficial to kind of learn from and build from. And so I think that's the, we play that bridging role. I think bridging relationships. I think that's been key to our success. I'll give you the plug. You know, tech policy press, you know, like, it's really helpful to have outlets that are out there that are writing about this. And I'll say some of the, you know, in Arizona, Az Illuminaria was very key. Their investigative journalism was very key to the community being aware of what was happening. But frankly, like one of the people that I started reading years ago that now is doing the roundabout with a book is Karen Howe. Her writings on data centers in the Atlantic and in other places I think was really key to shaping my understanding of what was happening. So we have to go out there and seek out the information because we're not the technical experts. But also we can build relationships in a way that allows us to kind of connect the dots and key moments. And that's been our approach to it. But I also know, like in places like Tucson and Vivek can speak to this a little more clearly. There are local, there's local expertise, people who understand many of the things that are being brought up. And you know, Tucson is fortunate to also have a university in town. It's a, it's a university town. So you have academics and researchers that are actually focused on water and energy use that have been helpful thought partners as well.

[A]

Definitely. One of Those professors is Dr. Michael Bogan. He's been huge, huge in kind of providing resources to us in terms of understanding water. Another organization that we're blessed to work with here is the Watershed Management Group. And they've been around for a while. They do trainings about, for folks on rainwater harvesting and they also have a lot to say about water policy and they work with the city. And so I think because water conservation is just such a part of our daily lives here and so much of a part of our messaging, it was really unfathomable to so many of us who've had to make adjustments to our lives to conserve water that the city would be prepared to give away so much of that Work the county would be prepared to give away so much of that work to this resource extractive corporation. One thing I learned during this process is that over the past 20 years since I moved away from Tucson, I just moved back a few years ago after having grown up here, is that Tucson's per capita water use is on the decline and Tucsonans have made a huge effort to limit our water consumption and there have been policies put in place to help that happen. So yeah, this was, this would have given all of that away and that was just unacceptable.

[B]

Steven, you know, you obviously doing this report and then through your work with Media justice you are in touch with many communities, you're organizing, you're serving as a kind of, as you say, bridge, but you're also in coalition across various groups. Are you observing a kind of national infrastructure being built around data center opposition or the contestation of data centers? Does it seem as if that has, has that coalesced?

[D]

Yeah, it's coalescing. And I think what's going to be key in fighting data centers is maintaining some level of nimbleness. There is the way you fight centralization and that's what we're up against. We're up against centralized opposition, big tech corporations that have control of infrastructure at multiple layers of the ecosystem. And the way you fight that is through some level of decentralization. So we're certainly a part of coalitions that are coming together and I'll name a couple like the Athena Coalition. We're a member of a data center working group with some national organizations that's helping to kind of be a repository of information, information sharing on like what we're seeing in the out in the ecosystem. There's also a cross state working group of state based organizations that are fighting data centers much in the way that that Vivek has, has brought up like where the fight in Tucson has evolved into. Now it's a state fight because we're dealing with a state corporate commission. And so there, there are places where those groups are coming together. You know another thing I think I'll shout out and this is more of like how do we create informal opportunities for relationship building. We're going to be hosting a gathering next year in the spring called Take Back Tech. It's the third of its kind. And actually I think Vivek went to the very first Takeback Tech which took place in San Jose back in 2019 and we hosted one last year in Chicago in the summer, doing another one next year. And that's going to be a space I would imagine a lot of groups on the ground that are not necessarily tapped into state organizations or like big national organizations, that's going to be a space where they can come and build relationship with other groups that are moving similar work and to share relationship and share resources. But it is coalescing in different ways. And I think that one thing I'll throw out there is that there's just. With data centers, even just in the south alone, and we said this in the report, there's $200 billion worth of data center projects moving just in the South. And that's not to speak of what's moving throughout the United States. And that's certainly not to speak of what's moving globally. And so the fight is everywhere. And I do hope that more and more infrastructure comes together that helps to kind of to weave these fights together. But what we also need more than anything really, though, is a national story. And I think one of the things we were seeding through this report, and I'll just repeat it again, is that there's nothing inevitable about these data centers. You can and should push back. You can and should say no. And we hope that the demands, even though they're specific to a report about the south, are also as true in every other region in the country. You can say no to these things. You can demand a democratic process where there is not one happening. You can connect data centers to the extractive surveillance tools that you see in your backyard, even if you don't have a data center being built in your community. So encouraging folks to organize, to connect with us if they'd like.

[B]

I want to maybe just ask you one last question, which is to that point, about a national narrative. I mean, there is a national narrative that appears to be operative at the highest levels, at this kind of commanding height to the government at the moment, that, you know, building this infrastructure is not only in the country's economic interest, but also in its national security interest. A lot of the policy around artificial intelligence is framed in the race with China. And there seems to be almost a kind of sense of we need to clear the decks, steamroll obstacles, and perhaps even make sacrifices so that the country can maintain its edge against another superpower.

[D]

I think what's important to recognize, and I think this will feel especially true for people who have been dealt a raw deal, whether that's like, through systemic discrimination and racism, through underinvestment, through the loss of economic industry, seeing, like, the economic powerhouses leave your town and take your jobs elsewhere. I think there's A common experience of there are people in these rooms that we don't get to be a part of that get to make decisions about what happens to our lives. And I think, you know, the national narrative being like this is so imperative to the national security of the United States. Like, that has been a story that has been very intentionally and deliberately positioned by tech giants themselves. They are saying our economic interest is the same as the national interest. And what they're really saying is my ability to generate more profit to, in the context of Elon Musk, to become the world's first trillionaire. That matters more than any other consideration that the push for AI to win the AI arms race matters more than to poison people in South Memphis. You know, that's what they're saying, that there are. There is a necessary sacrifice, and that sacrifice is a human sacrifice, that certain people are worth sacrificing for technological purpose, progress. And I think it's indicative, I think, of a moment in time, you know, when you think back to, like, the construct, the construction of the interstate highway system throughout the United States. It was like urban planners, engineers, Robert Moses in New York, very intentionally bulldozing through black and brown neighborhoods all over the country for the sake of progress. And it's that kind of sacrifice that we're seeing happening again around data centers. So I guess what I would say is that no matter who wins the AI arms race, whether it's China or the United States, the people who will lose are communities of color. The people who will lose are the communities that have historically been underinvested in. It's the communities that will be dealt a raw deal, being told that all these jobs are coming to town. Come to find out that in the fine print, it's no more than 50 jobs. And most of those are contract jobs. So they're not even like actual technical employees of many of these companies. Those are the communities that will be sacrificed and lost for the sake of someone else's technological problems.

[A]

I said a little earlier that these are the kinds of deals that our municipalities are kind of engaged in, in a race to the bottom. And that's because they're cash strapped. Right? We do need economic development. And I think for us, as Node Data Center Coalition, we're starting to get a little more proactive in terms of reaching out to. Figuring out how to reach out to other folks and other organizations in our community to think through what economic development can look like in a way that supports our communities and is sustainable much of the way that our municipalities at the county and city level, the administrations are going about economic development. From what I understand this being my first foray into local politics here, is that they're chasing these big projects that ostensibly come with a lot of money and they also come with a lot of blood. And like we've said already, they come with a requirement to sacrifice a lot. You know, we want to think through, like, what are some economic development projects that we can engage in here and be proactive about that are smaller, right? What are the kinds of things that folks in our communities could invest in? And I'm not talking about tax revenue, right? Like, I'm not talking about, like, where can we allocate tax revenue better, but like, where are some project. What are projects that our communities that the county and city can facilitate, that people who have a stake in our community, who live here, who are invested in continuing to live here, who want their children to have a choice about whether or not they live here, what are those projects that we can put our own money into and see some return on investment? I've been a nonprofit worker. I've been worked in higher ed for most of my career. And I have a very small retirement account that's in. In 401k portfolios. And a lot of those are in tech firms. Right. Apart from just like how I feel about this, I have zero material interest right, in my money being invested in those places. If those same corporations are coming and extracting resources from my community and pushing my power and water bills up, like zero material interest. So in a second, I would pull my money from there. And if there was an opportunity to put it into something local that I knew would support myself and support my communities.

[B]

Sounds like you're. You're trying to kind of cobble together essentially an alternative future for your community, one that's different from the one that Silicon Valley wants to sell you.

[A]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And we can do that together.

[B]

Steven, thank you so much for joining me.

[A]

Thanks so much for the opportunity, Justin. It's been great to chat with you. Thanks, Steve.

[D]

Thank you, Justin.

[C]

That's it for this episode. I hope you'll send your feedback. You can write to me at JustInEchPolicy Press. Thanks to my guests, thanks to my co founder, Brian Jones, and thank you for listening.

[D]

Tech Policy Press.