Elon Musk's Colossus 2 xAI data center, which runs independently of the power grid through on-site natural gas turbines, is said to be releasing thousands of tons of nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide every year. According to Reuters, the company has installed 59 temporary, mobile natural gas turbines without permission, and these unpermitted portable units mostly heavily affect the communities surrounding the site, which happen to be predominantly black and are already suffering disproportionately high lung disease rates. xAI has claimed that it’s running 27 turbines without any permits, saying that it’s exempted because of their temporary nature.

Elon Musk’s alleged use of illegal turbines isn’t a new issue, with the community discovering that it’s been using over 30 gas turbines on the site, despite only having an ongoing application for 15 in July 2025. The company said that these turbines are exempted from the permitting process, as they are not permanent installations and will be moved within 364 days. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a ruling earlier this year that removed all exceptions, but told Reuters that “it’s considering changes allowing ‘regulatory flexibilities’ for portable units while continuing to protect public health.”

The Colossus data centers were put up in record time, and Musk had to bring his own energy sources to achieve this. That’s because connecting to the grid could take years, especially if the grid must be upgraded to deliver his 1-GW capacity target. However, the Clean Air Act permitting process could take a similarly long time, with the report suggesting xAI bypassed it completely just to achieve its goal. Adding to the complexity, while the data center is located in Tennessee, Reuters reports that "at least" 57 of the 59 turbines are actually located just over the state line in Mississippi, which issued a permit for 41 permanent turbines in March. xAI and Mississippi environmental regulators claim the turbines are mobile and therefore don't need permits, but they also aren't covered by the permit for 41 permanent turbines.

This did not sit well with the communities surrounding the data centers, especially Colossus 2, which sat near the border of Tennessee and Mississippi. Because of this, xAI (now called SpaceXAI after its recent merger with Space X) is facing a lawsuit from the NAACP, which alleges that the operation of these unpermitted turbines resulted in an 111% increase in nitrogen oxide exhaust, an 83% increase in PM2.5 airborne particles, and an 88% increase in formaldehyde emissions. The Reuters investigation says that just 30 of the 59 turbines listed could emit 2,500 tons of nitrogen oxide, 4,000 tons of carbon monoxide, and 22 tons of formaldehyde annually — way above the 100-ton nitrogen oxide threshold that the Clean Air Act set for turbines to operate without a permit.

These pollutants are proven to have adverse effects on the health of the people living within a five-mile radius of the source, and census data showed that the residents living in the affected area are predominantly black. Since Colossus 2 straddles a state boundary, the publication listed the data for two counties — DeSoto County, Mississippi, and Shelby County, Tennessee. Statistics show that about 46% of the population in the former and 94% in the latter are black, which is significantly higher compared to the 33% and 52% in the rest of the counties.

While the report did not say that these communities were deliberately targeted, it also pointed to a 2022 study that showed that areas once redlined by banks still suffer in the present day from higher air pollutant emissions. SpaceXAI recently announced an automatic 50% discount and free hardware rentals on Starlink plans for people living near Colossus 1 and 2, with SpaceX VP for Starlink Michael Nicolls saying on X, “The unique capabilities of the Colossus datacenters could not be accomplished without the partnership and support from the local Memphis community.” While this may bring some benefit to already existing Starlink users, some say that this is merely a PR stunt to help give the company a better image as the community is battling the air and noise pollution they bring to the area.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law Senate Bill S10642 today, also called the Responsible Data Center Development Act, which would put a one-year moratorium on all data center developments in the state. According to Reuters, this is the first temporary ban to be enforced statewide in the U.S. Maine’s legislature was actually the first one to pass a statewide moratorium, but Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed the measure after it failed to exempt a data center project “that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region.”

"As data center development threatens ⁠to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take ​action and lead," Hochul said in a statement. She also said that she’s pursuing legislation to repeal tax exemptions for large data centers. The moratorium will apply to data center projects with a capacity of 50 megawatts or more, with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation not issuing any more permits to projects that haven’t been completed yet.

Hochul said that the state will build a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) so that future data center developments are held to “consistent standards,” while also looking at how the construction and operation of these projects will impact the environment. Although the data center moratorium is set for one year, the governor’s office said that it will be lifted once the state has finalized the GEIS.

President Donald Trump has been pushing for the development of AI technologies, with the White House releasing the ‘AI Action Plan’ to accelerate infrastructure build-out. While this policy encouraged the development of AI data centers, the numerous large projects also resulted in memory and storage chip shortages, as well as negative impacts in the communities and regions where they’re located. For example, Monitoring Analytics, which oversees the largest power grid operator in the U.S., attributes an “irreversible” 76% price hike to increased data center demand, while a Virginia county has asked government offices to conserve power because of AI-driven price hikes. There have also been multiple issues with various data center projects relating to water consumption and air and noise pollution, which is why 70% of Americans now oppose having a data center built near their home.

All this pushback has resulted in many jurisdictions passing data center moratoriums. More than 75 projects have already been delayed in the first half of this year, amounting to $130 billion, with New York state being the first one to pass a state-wide temporary ban. Before this, Seattle, which plays host to the headquarters of Amazon and Microsoft, passed a similar one-year moratorium last month.

While delays like this will likely negatively impact the future availability of compute within the U.S., it’s also forcing tech giants to speed up innovations and governments to pass laws that protect their constituents. Multiple startups have started unveiling or even turning on their small modular reactor (SMR) prototypes, which could deliver the power needed by data centers without increasing air pollution or straining the local power grid. AI tech companies like Microsoft and Nvidia are also working on solutions that will cut data center energy use and water consumption, while Oregon’s POWER Act increased data center bills by 30% while cutting residential costs by 1.3%.

Meta has said it will expand its Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 GW (gigawatts) of compute capacity from an initial 2 GW, pushing the company’s planned investment in the region beyond $50 billion. The announcement — made in an official blog post on Monday, July 13 — confirms the long-signaled scale-up of what is already Meta's largest data center.

The expansion will be a major increase over the $10 billion, 4-million-square-foot project Meta unveiled in December 2024, when it said the campus would deliver more than 2 GW of capacity. However, the 5GW target itself is not entirely new. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July 2025 that Hyperion would eventually reach that scale. Monday’s announcement formally ties the expanded capacity to an investment exceeding $50 billion and provides updated figures for jobs, contracts, and public infrastructure spending.

Much of the announcement is built around local economic impact. Meta said local Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts since construction began, while also highlighting teacher bonuses in Richland Parish that rose from $10,000 last year to more than $50,000 this year, funded by increased tax revenue tied to the data center.

In what appears to be a bid to pacify anti-data-center sentiment further, Meta said it plans to invest over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water, and wastewater systems, as part of the expansion. The company’s recent agreement with utility Entergy Louisiana includes natural-gas plants providing more than 5.2 GW of capacity and support for up to 2.5 GW of new solar generation. Entergy claims Meta’s payments could save other customers around $2 billion over 20 years — a significant reprieve amid concerns over the impact of data centers on nearby residents’ electricity bills — although those savings remain projections.

On the other hand, the project is also receiving substantial state and local support. In late 2024, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed into law a 20-year sales tax exemption for data centers built before 2029, part of an explicit effort to court Meta. The law allows qualifying data centers to claim sales-and-use-tax exemptions on eligible equipment. At the same time, Meta is expected to benefit from the state’s Quality Jobs program and a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement that could reduce its property-tax burden if investment and employment targets are met.

First announced as a $10 billion project in December 2024, Hyperion is Meta’s AI supercluster campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana. The data center will house the infrastructure needed to train and run Meta’s future AI models, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg linking it directly to Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company’s AI division. In October 2025, Meta and Blue Owl Capital announced a joint venture valuing the project’s buildings and infrastructure at roughly $27 billion. Blue Owl holds about 80% of the venture, with Meta retaining 20% and leasing the completed facilities. The July 13 announcement raises Meta’s total planned investment in the region to more than $50 billion, but provides no further details on how the expansion affects the joint venture.

Hyperion is one node in a much larger spend. Meta is forecast to spend up to $145 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, mostly on AI infrastructure, as demand for AI compute continues to outstrip supply. The company has said it will cut 8,000 jobs to raise funds. Meanwhile, Monday's announcement follows what Meta says is its strongest week on the market since early 2024, driven by new AI model releases.

Data centers accounted for 23% of Ireland's total electricity consumption in 2025, according to data released by the country's Central Statistics Office last week. The report revealed that data center consumption rose to 7,663 GWh in 2025 from 6,973 GWh in 2024, a 10% rise in a single year. Meanwhile, consumption by the rest of the country increased by just 2% within the same period.

Viewed over a ten-year period, the 2025 figure represents a steep 360% increase from 2015, when data centers' total consumption was just 5%. The rise in consumption is even steeper when measured on a quarterly basis. Q4 2026’s consumption was 1,991 GWh, a 584% rise from Q1 2015’s 291 GWh.

“Newly compiled quarterly figures spanning 2015 to 2025 highlight a substantial increase in metered electricity consumption by data centers. Over this period, data center consumption saw a significant increase, from 291 GWh in the first quarter of 2015 to 1,991 GWh in Q4 2025, growing by 584%,” noted Dr. Grzegorz Głaczyński, an in-house statistician in the CSO’s Climate and Energy Division.

At 23%, data centers' consumption was almost as much as residential, including both urban and rural dwellings, which stood at 28%. The roll oout of these server farms — which have rapidly increased in number around the world due to the AI boom — have sparked a global debate. While they are critical to the AI technological revolution, there has been growing concern about their impact on the local communities where they are situated. Critics cite the impact of the immense electricity consumption on residents’ bills as one of many concerns.

The Republic of Ireland, with a relatively small population of around five million, is home to around 89 data centers, primarily clustered around the Greater Dublin Area. The majority and the largest belong to hyperscalers, including Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Meta, that build and operate facilities exclusively for their own cloud infrastructure, consumer apps, and AI frameworks. The rest are owned by colocation providers that lease out capacity.

While Ireland's initial data center boom was driven by traditional cloud storage and social media applications, the explosion of generative AI has led to a sharp increase. Due to fears that soaring electricity demand from server farms would cause widespread blackouts, the country's Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) issued an emergency regulatory direction in November 2021 that imposed a de facto moratorium on new data center grid connections. The policy mandated that the national grid operator, EirGrid, immediately halt the processing of standard power applications for new data facilities, requiring developers to either supply their own on-site electricity generation or relocate to unconstrained regions outside the Greater Dublin Area.

Despite the moratorium, data center consumption continued to rise steadily, to the point that the International Energy Agency predicted in 2024 that data centers would account for a third of the country's electricity consumption by 2026. The data show that the prediction remains a possibility, as the 23% figure was for 2025 and consumption has risen steadily every year.

Ireland has replaced the moratorium with a new Large Energy Users (LEU) Connection Policy, enacted by the CRU in late 2025 to manage data center growth. Under this policy, developers of new data centers (over 10 MVA) must provide 100% on-site, flexible power generation to meet demand, while sourcing at least 80% of annual electricity from new, unsubsidized renewable projects within six years of operation.

The immense electricity consumption is not unique to Ireland; surveys indicate that global data center electricity consumption will grow by 26% this year. These concerns, as well as issues over water usage and noise pollution, have led to growing anti-data sentiment in the US, with 70% of Americans reportedly opposed to siting data centers nearby. Protests have led to the cancellation of over 75 data center projects in the U.S. in Q1 2026.