Artificial intelligence is reshaping nearly every aspect of modern life. From healthcare and education to scientific research and economic development, AI promises innovations that could improve lives around the world. Behind every chatbot, medical algorithm, and digital assistant, however, lies a vast physical infrastructure that most people never see: data centers.

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As states compete to attract billions of dollars in AI investment, an equally important question is emerging: Who bears the environmental costs of powering the digital future?

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The answer is not as simple as opponents or supporters sometimes suggest. AI data centers can generate construction jobs, increase local tax revenues, improve digital infrastructure, and attract long-term technology investment. Some companies have demonstrated that these facilities can operate more sustainably by relying on renewable energy, advanced cooling technologies, recycled water systems, and strong community benefit agreements that include local hiring and workforce development. These examples show that AI infrastructure and community well-being are not inherently incompatible.

 

Yet for many communities, particularly those that have already endured decades of industrial pollution, the arrival of another large-scale industrial facility raises legitimate concerns about environmental justice, transparency, and equity.

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Few places illustrate those concerns more powerfully than Africatown, Alabama.​ Founded in 1866 by survivors of the Clotilda, Africatown represents one of America's most extraordinary stories of resilience. Rather than disappear into a society that had enslaved them, the survivors built their own self-governed community rooted in African traditions, faith, and family. More than 160 years later, their descendants continue fighting to preserve that legacy.

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Today, however, Africatown is also one of Alabama's most striking examples of environmental injustice. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 62 regulated and active industrial facilities operate within the 3.5-square-mile Africatown Planning Area, with 143 additional facilities located near its borders. Of Mobile County's 47 pollution-producing industries, 30 are located within three miles of Africatown. Paper mills, asphalt plants, petrochemical facilities, coal terminals, and methane-burning power plants have surrounded this predominantly Black community since World War II.

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Residents have long described air so polluted they could barely see across the street, while corrosive emissions reportedly damaged vehicles and property. A 1999 EPA assessment identified numerous hazardous air pollutants in the community, and a neighborhood that once numbered roughly 12,000 residents has steadily declined as pollution, illness, disinvestment, and outmigration reshaped the community.

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It is within this context that proposals for AI data centers have generated understandable concern. Technology companies often describe data centers as relatively quiet facilities once construction is complete. While visually unobtrusive, their operational demands are significant. The International Energy Agency estimates that a large AI data center can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households. Some facilities may use up to five million gallons of water each day to cool servers—roughly the daily water needs of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

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The environmental impact of these facilities depends largely on how they are powered. If electricity comes primarily from fossil fuel plants, increased demand can translate into higher emissions for nearby communities. In Memphis, residents have raised concerns about increased air pollution associated with gas-powered turbines supporting AI infrastructure. Across the South, where a MediaJustice review identified more than $200 billion in planned data infrastructure, environmental justice advocates warn that many projects are being proposed in communities that have historically borne disproportionate environmental burdens.

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For Africatown, those concerns are compounded by existing infrastructure. The community is already served by the Hog Bayou Energy Center, a methane-burning power plant, leading residents to question what additional strain large AI facilities could place on an already burdened energy system. Community organizations have also emphasized the importance of transparency. Residents want access to environmental impact studies, water-use analyses, energy sourcing plans, and other information before projects move forward. Too often, advocates argue, critical details remain difficult to obtain while negotiations occur between developers and public officials.

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These conversations are no longer limited to Africatown.​ Recent discussions surrounding proposed AI-related development in Lowndes County have expanded the debate across Alabama. Similar questions have also emerged in Bessemer, where community leaders and civil rights advocates have called for greater transparency regarding large-scale technology projects. Together, these discussions suggest that Alabama is becoming an important testing ground for how communities balance economic opportunity with environmental responsibility.

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The NAACP has consistently argued that economic development and environmental justice should never be treated as competing priorities. Through its Environmental and Climate Justice Program, the organization has called for comprehensive environmental impact assessments, meaningful community engagement, public transparency, and accountability throughout the permitting process. As the NAACP has emphasized, no community should be forced to choose between economic opportunity and the fundamental rights to clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods.

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Fortunately, communities across the country are also demonstrating that another path is possible. Some jurisdictions have negotiated community benefit agreements requiring local hiring, workforce training, environmental monitoring, infrastructure improvements, and investments in neighborhood priorities. Many developers are adopting renewable energy, closed-loop cooling systems, immersion cooling technologies, and recycled water systems that significantly reduce electricity consumption and water use compared to older facilities. These examples demonstrate that responsible AI infrastructure is not only possible—it is already happening when innovation is paired with transparency and community partnership.

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Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly shape the future. The data centers powering that future must be built somewhere. The question is not whether America will continue constructing them, but whether we will build them differently than we built so much of the industrial infrastructure that came before. The conversations unfolding in Africatown, Lowndes County, Bessemer, Memphis, and communities across the nation are about more than individual development proposals. They are helping define the ethical framework for the AI economy itself. If innovation is truly meant to improve lives, then the communities powering that innovation deserve more than promises of progress. They deserve transparency, meaningful participation, environmental protection, and an equitable share of the benefits created by the technologies of tomorrow.

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The AI revolution presents an extraordinary opportunity—not only to transform our economy, but to demonstrate that technological advancement, environmental stewardship, and justice can move forward together. Whether we seize that opportunity will depend not only on the technologies we build, but on the values that guide where—and how—we choose to build them.