Demetri Carter is among the residents of Southaven, Miss., who moved there for a quieter life away from nearby Memphis, where the news seemed dominated by crime and political malfeasance.
She had been vaguely aware when Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company began acquiring land in Memphis in 2024 for two data centers. But she was taken aback when the company, xAI, suddenly parked a fleet of temporary turbines about two-tenths of a mile from her home to help power them.
“It’s quiet, it is peaceful, and then all of a sudden, all of this,” said Ms. Carter, 60, who has taken to hitting the road on weekends, rather than staying at home and enduring a sound that she and others liken to roaring jet engines.
Ms. Carter, along with more than 250 people, came to a recent hearing and pleaded with state officials to reject the company’s bid to permanently operate 41 gas turbines in Southaven. But this week, Mississippi regulators unanimously approved the permit. The power provided by the turbines will help the supercomputer that trains xAI’s chatbot, Grok.
The unhappiness in Southaven, a city of nearly 60,000 people in a politically conservative county, is the latest evidence of the growing international backlash against data centers powering artificial intelligence. State and local officials are often eager to capitalize on billions of dollars in tech investment, while residents and environmental activists cite a long list of potential harms, including that the centers will guzzle water and force up electricity bills.
In recent months, Mr. Musk has turned to Tennessee for two high-profile projects: the data center in Memphis for xAI and an underground tunnel that his Boring Company is building in Nashville. In a statement on X, another enterprise owned by Mr. Musk, xAI said it was “thrilled” to have the permit approval, adding that it would help ensure “the future of AI innovation through @Grok.” “This permit not only meets all state and federal permitting regulations but goes above and beyond what is required by law,” the statement said.
But xAI’s encroachment into Mississippi was a surprise to some. In addition to the turbines, the company has bought land for a third data center, in Southaven.
“I knew he was going to have to have power for his A.I. plant — I just didn’t know to the extent,” said Julie Smith, a nurse practitioner who went to the hearing in Southaven in search of answers about the turbines and their impact on the city.
“We just want to know what’s going on,” she said.
Officials have sought to tamp down concerns — xAI said it installed a $7 million sound wall in Southaven earlier this year, for example — while stressing the potential for economic growth. But mistrust in government and big tech companies has only heightened public skepticism over new A.I. technology.
“The sheer unleashing of this industry into a rapid, accelerated large-scale scale-up has upped the ante,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies the impact of A.I. on local economies.
Mississippi officials see xAI’s expansion into their state as a welcome infusion of economic investment. Mr. Musk and his company have separately pledged to pour millions of dollars into community projects in the region.
“I understand individuals who would rather not have any industrial project in their backyard,” Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican, said in a statement last month, after Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called for a national pause on data center construction. And yet, Mr. Reeves added, “I do not understand the impulse to prevent our country from advancing technologically — except as civilizational suicide.”
In Southaven, Mayor Darren Musselwhite, a Republican, has said that opposing the xAI turbines would be akin to Memphis rejecting FedEx’s headquarters in 1973. (The city in fact welcomed the headquarters, and FedEx is now its largest employer.)
“I would never advocate for any development that jeopardized the safety of Southaven citizens,” Mr. Musselwhite said in a recent Facebook post. “The objective facts support that this is a safe development and does not create any additional risk for our citizens.”
But in Southaven, there are still objections to the steady roars of the turbines. Since they began operating in August, at least one resident, Jason Haley, has taken to recording the sound at various moments during the day; according to his measurements, it has ranged between 48 and 68 decibels over the last few weeks inside his house — roughly the volume of a vacuum cleaner.
Other communities, including the neighborhood of Memphis where the first xAI data center was built, have raised concerns about air pollution.
“I don’t care whose project this is, I’m going to have the same feelings,” said Mr. Haley, 46, who drove from his home in Southaven to Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday for a chance to raise objections at the meeting where the permit was approved.
The state hearing last month in Southaven was the only opportunity for residents to provide input before the permitting decision on Tuesday.
On the morning of the hearing, Mr. Musk shared a social media post highlighting how “xAI is proud to be a member of the Memphis community.”
Some of those who spoke at the hearing live in Memphis, including State Representative Justin J. Pearson, a Tennessee Democrat whose family has fought industrial projects in and around the city for years.
“Pollution doesn’t care about the imaginary boundaries that have been written across our states,” said Mr. Pearson, who is seeking a seat in Congress. The NAACP has filed an intent to sue over the turbines in Southaven, charging that they violate the federal Clean Air Act. Opponents have pointed to an outside analysis that predicts tens of millions of dollars in additional health costs alone because the chemicals released by the turbines could cause respiratory issues.
But many also came from Southaven, stressing that their concerns were not necessarily rooted in politics. Parents came after work with their children in tow. A woman’s portable oxygen concentrator beeped in the background during the testimony.
Many people said they were worried about the unknown impact on a place that had felt safe and affordable.
“I just think that we can’t possibly know the cost — like, this is a new thing,” said Betty Duffey, 32, a stay-at-home mother.
“We’re not opposed to development,” she added. But “this is an exponentially different level.”
Kate Conger contributed reporting.
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.
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