It’s no secret that living near a data center can be hell on Earth. The widely-loathed facilities are known to emit constant screeching noises that could drive anybody crazy, while causing electricity prices to surge, and spiking greenhouse gas emissions.
As the backlash to the massive buildout of AI data centers continues to grow into a major bipartisan issue affecting the imminent midterm elections, tech companies are racing to ward off future legal challenges.
Yet, being a good neighbor is proving extremely difficult for them. As The Guardian reports, real estate agents hired by Elon Musk’s xAI have been going door to door in Southaven, Mississippi, promising residents to buy their homes as long as they sign documents promising not to sue them over their data centers’ noise.
It’s only the latest sign of how immensely unpopular the sprawling complexes have become, with firms like xAI reaching for drastic measures to undercut an uprising — and a litany of lawsuits filed by horrified neighbors. Needless to say, the latest news is bound to stoke the fire even more.
One agent told The Guardian that the goal is to buy a whopping 418 homes. According to recordings obtained by the newspaper, 18 homeowners have already agreed to sell.
Three massive data centers have cropped up across Southaven and the neighboring Memphis, Tennessee in just two years. The enormous noise being emitted by potentially illegal and polluting gas turbines has locals infuriated.
“It sounds like an airplane engine but it’s continuous, it’s incredibly loud,” nearby resident Elizabeth Rose told The Guardian. “I’ve been woken up at 2am by it, I’ve been woken up at 3am by it. I sometimes have to just get away from it because it makes me so angry.”
“All of a sudden there was a plant there,” she added. “And now I get the feeling they are trying to expand the buyout to the entire neighborhood. It will become Elon Musk’s little playground, basically. Elonville.”
Musk himself has been living in an Airstream trailer in the Memphis area to oversee the data center construction, suggesting it’s a major priority for him.
However, winning over the public has been a major thorn. Earlier this year, three locals sued xAI over “near-constant noise, vibrations and other nuisance-level harms” from its nearby power plant.
The data center backlash has become a hot-button issue for voters ahead of the midterm elections, which are less than a week away. Citizens across the country have been waging a war against the offending facilities, retaliation that has even had leaders of frontier AI labs, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, rattled.
Musk, who has long cemented himself as an extremely divisive figure — polls suggest he’s one of the most hated people in the world — will likely have a difficult time winning over residents of Mississippi and Tennessee, who are being driven “insane” by the cacophony.
More on data center backlash: There Are Signs of Serious Trouble in the Data Center Industry
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