The visuals are nostalgic small-town America: neighbors catching up at a local diner, crops being harvested in a golden hour haze, cut to the cheering crowd at a Friday-night high school football game. It’s a new ad campaign from Meta, brought to a streaming service near you, painting its hyperscale data center building spree as a welcome, beneficent investment in rural communities across the United States. Off screen, Meta’s AI-fueled land and resource grab is being fiercely resisted by communities from northeastern Louisiana to eastern Wisconsin as they contend with the direct costs of a trillion-dollar tech company’s latest ambitions. Neighbors of Meta’s hyperscale data center in Newton County, Georgia describe issues with water pressure and quality since the facility was built – Meta reportedly now accounts for roughly 10% of the county’s total daily water use. A small town near the site of Meta’s under-construction “Hyperion” facility in Louisiana has seen a 600% increase in car crashes since the onset of construction traffic; the local elementary school closed its playground as a safety precaution. When completed, that data center campus will consume as much energy daily as New Orleans, requiring at least three brand-new fossil-fueled power plants to operate, according to the Associated Press.
The Real Race for an AI Moratorium: Stopping Data Centers | TechPolicy.Press
