Hyperscale Data Centers

What's the end game here?

The xAI Colossus data center in Memphis, Tennessee, May 2025. This sprawling data center has been able to operate without permits for methane gas turbines because they are "portable." Laws are optional for billionaires. Water demand is over five million gallons per day. Photo: Stephen Voss/Redux

First, it’s 87° F as I write today in Buffalo, NY, on May 16.

This is a temperature that was rarely reached in July or August thirty-five years ago when I attended college here. Returning five years ago, the difference is unnerving.

We face numerous profound crises of our own making. Western US basin states are on the verge of collapse through drought-driven agricultural devastation and power loss to 40 million people. I wrote of this in Leaving Las Vegas. Texas is in equal trouble which I covered in Corpus Crispy. Texas’ water situation is more complex than the basin states, but like California — the fifth-largest economy in the world — also a critical agricultural producer. Fossil fueled drought and depleted aquifers threaten agriculture and the nation’s economic stability.

States such as Kansas and Oklahoma have already been devastated by drought created fire conditions and wind sweeping down the plains before fire season. By February 19, more than 300,000 acres burned in Oklahoma. Currently, 115,000 acres are on fire in Kansas, also part of the Oklahoma conflagration. These fires are starting far earlier as the length of fire season increases from temperatures 20° to 40° F above normal that broiled states from California to Tennessee, not this spring, but this winter. Like Texas and California, these are also crucial agricultural states.

US farmers are hanging on by their fingernails from high profit-driven input costs dictated by the Cargill’s and Monsanto’s of this world for seed, fertilizer and combines that can cost $600,000 — or more, try a cool million — that they’re forbidden to repair themselves through software locks and malicious design. John Deere is a primary offender. Desperation has set in with a shocking suicide rate three and one half times higher than the general population.

Amber waves of grain are endangered. So are fruited plains. America is becoming less beautiful by the day. But fortunately, oligarchs have plans that further undermine our food security, the blinding build out of artificial intelligence data centers covering thousands of square miles and guzzling our drinking water and that needed for crops. They guzzle electricity as well, spewing yet more planet heating GHGs into our atmosphere. If you have been led to believe wind and solar are making a significant contribution, think again. Fossil fuels are their primary source and sociopaths like Mark Zuckerberg whose products provenly harm the mental health of our children has proposed a data center the size of Manhattan. This isn’t the largest one proposed or under construction.

BTW, consider bitcoin part of the same problem. Digital currency requires massive data centers, too.

The explosion of AI data centers and their consequences

This interactive map shows the boggling explosion of data centers in detail in recent years. Similar can be found from Business Insider, here.

Growth of hyperscale data centers since the rollout of AI has been explosive. These projects are political giveaways without public hearings or consent, and sweetheart tax deals. I strongly suspect bribes are involved. These nightmare facilities — each one an environmental disaster which can cover up to hundreds or even thousands of acres each — are erected with stunning speed, forever ruining the communities they are built next to. The US already has over 4,000 data centers to date, more than the next fourteen countries combined. The biggest players are the usual high-tech suspects: Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Meta. Musk’s xAI in Memphis is a prime case study. More on that later.

The irony of writing about overshoot, climate change and energy on a computer reliant on data centers for research and publishing isn’t lost on me. AI however, is an egregious assault that far exceeds previous data centers from the raw computational requirements created stacked by chip sets that run exceedingly hot, requiring water for cooling and electricity at enormously greater levels. I will NEVER use AI in my own work for those reasons and more. I know some of you are forced to use AI. As usual, destructive technology is making hostages of us.

Yay, we’re number one. Graphic from The Visual Capitalist. Statista puts the US total considerably higher.

AI data centers: deadly water and power requirements

Power consumption

AI data centers require water and power at levels that make regular data warehouses look benign. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman openly admitted AI is heading for an energy crisis three years ago at the annual 2023 World Economic Forum meeting. He warned the next wave of generative AI systems will consume vastly more power than expected, and that energy systems will struggle to cope. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” he said.

In the meantime, we’ll just keep pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere, I guess.

Data center energy use is measured in Terawatt-hours (TWh). One TWh of energy represents one trillion watts of power used for one hour. A TWh is a measure large enough to describe the annual electricity generation of entire nations or in the case of this article the stunning energy consumption of behemoth AI data centers.

Currently, these centers are estimated to use about 4.4 percent of available energy. However, that is on course to skyrocket in just the next few years.

Projected data center energy use by 2030. Source here.

If we query an AI model, what happens after your question is routed to a data center is a black box. Which data center processes your request, how much energy it takes to do so, and how carbon-intensive the energy sources used are knowable only to the companies that run the models.

Name brand AI you may be accustomed such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude are opaque. So is Musk’s xAI and hateful Grok. Details of their energy use and mix of energy sources are carefully hidden, claimed to be trade secrets. I call bullshit as water and energy use hammer our pockets and health as well. More on health follows. These are issues that should be subject to strong regulation. However, Musk’s DOGE gutted EPA staff and the sycophant stooge Lee Zeldin has undermined foundational environmental law and conspires on these projects.

Researchers have estimated that a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search.

Remarkably, Business Insider found a clever way around the blackout of AI data center power consumption.

From Why AI uses so much energy — and what we can do about it, a study by Mahmut Kandemir, a distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering.

At about five minutes into Exposing The Dark Side of America’s AI Data Center Explosion this reveal is explained. In spite of being presented with heavily redacted documents hiding those “trade secrets,” data centers need backup power. This comes in the form of diesel generators. The generators require air quality permits. By filing for public records in every state, the size and numbers of generators were revealed, enabling estimates of the power requirements for any given data center facility. Kudos to Business Insider for diligence on this tedious work.

Water usage

Data centers rely on freshwater for cooling. The AI boom has exponentially escalated that demand. In 2025, data centers consumed hundreds of billions of gallons of water for cooling and power generation. Developers are exploiting rivers, aquifers, and municipal water supplies at unprecedented rates, putting at minimum hundreds of communities at risk.

This is why I started the article with farming. AI water demand competes with our food in even the most drought-stricken regions on the planet, including the desert. In Maricopa County, AZ for instance, where hundreds are dying from heat deaths yearly now, AI server farms enshroud the region. New projects are slated for the Phoenix area where groundwater is the only source for cooling and aquifers were already being depleted faster than they can recover. From 2019 to 2022, Microsoft data centers grew from one to five. More are planned — air permit documents collected from the Maricopa County Air Quality Department reveal the energy and water requirements with 280 backup diesel generators applied for. Each building will use up to one million gallons of water a day drawn from the drying up Colorado River. This insanity can be found at about 18:30 of the Business Insider video.

Only three percent of Earth’s water is considered freshwater. Of that, only 0.5 percent is available for people as the rest resides in glaciers, polar ice caps, the atmosphere, and soil, or is highly polluted or too deep to be extracted. Large data centers can consume up to five million gallons of water per day, equivalent to the use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

The health hazards of AI data centers

Health altering noise pollution

Competition for water and electricity present their own health hazards, but there is much more to consider. These sprawling complexes create unrelenting, deep pulsing hum, enough to vibrate windows and walls, and create impossible conditions for sleep. The audible sound is destructive enough — a mental and physical toll that can result in depression, chronic insomnia and cardiovascular disease, but there is also insidious infrasound, 30 hertz and lower, well below the human hearing range associated with vertigo, pulmonary embolisms, seizures and heart palpitations.

From an article in Science Direct:

Data centers generate significant noise pollution primarily from diesel generators and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, with internal noise levels reaching up to 96 A-weighted decibels (dBA)—well above the 85 dBA threshold considered harmful to hearing [2]. This persistent noise adversely affects data center staff, nearby communities, and local wildlife, prompting increased public concern and a push for noise mitigation strategies.

One of the most densely data center populated states is Virginia with at least 500 such facilities encouraged by tax breaks, since obviously billionaires need all the help they can get. This article from US News speaks of the experience of Donna Gallant among other issues:

“As somebody who has anxiety, it triggers an anxiety attack in me every time they’re doing load testing, to the point where I can’t sleep because it literally rocks your core.”

The article also links to a study from George Mason University published in February which points to long-term impacts that may include increased risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, mental health struggles, stroke, diabetes and devastating reproductive outcomes such as miscarriage and stillbirth.

Health altering light pollution

This photo is not dawn. It’s the middle of the night in Crowell, TX, population 769. The light is from a Google AI data center being built next to the community.

Sleepless in Crowell doesn’t have the ring to it or charm of the movie Sleepless in Seattle. What it does bring is permanent daylight with disruption of melatonin production leading to insomnia, anxiety and fatigue. Residents describe it as permanent jet lag.

This is a feature for any community with the misfortune to have one of these beasts near them.

Supporters include local officials who are appealing to farmers looking to sell land. Remember where this article started? It started with the desperation of farmers, no doubt many will opt to sell their land even if they don’t want to.

A small sample of hyperscale madness

The hyperscale data centers of AI demand energy at unfathomable scale, stunningly approaching or exceeding the energy consumed by the state they’re being built in. Because our energy mix remains dependent on fossil fuels, these colossal facilities inevitably spew carbon and methane into the atmosphere, increasing global warming. The facilities using diesel generators as a primary source for electricity (they’re not just backup where the existing power grid can’t handle them) spew nitrous oxide as well (NOx), a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more powerful than CO₂. They also emit VOCs (volatile organic compounds) such as benzene and formaldehyde.

Many communities are experiencing skyrocketing energy bills and the failure of dependable water pressure and supply. Here are two examples of current hyperscale projects rammed through without voter consent that pose serious threats.

Elon Musk’s hyperscale Colossus Memphis project

Musk’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, TN has used “behind-the-meter power,” 30 “mini” gas turbines, sufficient to power more than 200,000 homes. These have been run illegally, without permits.

Musk’s xAI is now using 15 turbines at that site. In February, the company received approval to draw 300 megawatts of power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal utility that serves 10 million people in the region. This is one way we civilians pay for the billionaire AI scheme.

In spite of the 300 megawatts generously shared without taxpayer approval, xAI was also approved to add more behind-the-meter power, an additional 40 gas turbines across the state line in Mississippi for a second Memphis facility. Research published in February shows that the facility could significantly increase air pollution in North Mississippi and West Tennessee.

It’s worth it, though. Musk’s Grok spews racist hatred, promotes Nazi ideology and produces AI generated porn.

Kevin O’Leary’s hyperscale Utah project

Billionaire Kevin O’Leary is some kind of Shark Tank star. I really don’t care. He likes to be known as “Mr. Wonderful.” Kevin’s accomplishments are truly confusing to this small-brained, non-billionaire. In addition to Shark Tank, globalist O'Leary co-hosted Discovery Channel's "Project Earth" a television series that explored the financial implications of global climate change. BTW, a globalist is a person who believes what belongs to you actually belongs to me, err, them. My most expensive possession is a piece of antibiotic laden salmon I bought last week.

Project Earth would indicate some awareness of Mother Earth burning up, yet Mr. Wonderful has chosen the state of Utah to build a hyperscale data center. The entire state of Utah uses four gigawatts of energy a year. Covering just 40,000 acres of land or 62 square miles, the data center is estimated to require nine gigawatts. Now that is progress!

Fortunately, Mr. Wonderful’s data center doesn’t depend on those nasty diesel generators. Nope! It relies on global warming LNG, no NOx or benzene and formaldehyde nasties. That is wonderful!

The AI end game

This essay has been exhausting. Sorry to wear you out, too. The question becomes why is AI being jammed down our throats? There are theories out there. My belief? Control. Evidence over recent years points to a drive to a surveillance society from “smart” TVs and appliances sending feedback to the Internet to the cars we drive tracking our habits which are provided to insurance companies to determine our rates, accidents or not. Even the chipped teddy bear you buy your child can be a surveillance device with its microphone and camera.

After WWII America became the preeminent power on the planet. We were giddy after the war and surging technology seemed to point to a future of unlimited miracles. We trusted corporations, and for a while they held up the social contract. Workers could depend on jobs for life and pensions were part of the package. That contract began to erode under Reagan and his neoliberalism was perhaps best expressed by breaking the air traffic controllers union. Neoliberalism was furthered by Clinton in the continued exploitation of nations globally.

That evil came home and has been eroding our country ever since, with Citizens United providing the coup de grâce. AI and hyperscale data centers are the logical conclusion of a corporate-fascist state that wishes to control us even at the price of an inhabitable planet. You see, the more of us who die, the better the odds for the billionaire bunker builders, at least in their deluded minds.

It’s fight or die time.