Erin Brockovich Launches Map Tracking Data Centers

Erin Brockovich is training her sights on artificial intelligence, and she's doing it with a map. The environmental activist has launched the Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting site, a crowdsourced effort to track where AI data centers are operating, being built, or merely proposed across the US, Mashable reports. The map currently lists 33 active centers, 44 under construction, and 27 proposed, plus more than 2,700 locations flagged by users—most of them in Texas, including nearly 300 reports in Sulphur Springs alone.

• "The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America," Brockovich says on the map website. "In some places, data centers are welcomed. In others, they are delayed, contested or abandoned altogether. This MAP captures the real-world footprint of that race—revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty."
• The Brockovich project comes amid a growing backlash to data centers. The AI boom is supported "by the White House, Wall Street, and some of the most powerful companies in the world," but data center projects are meeting fierce pushback at the local level, Gizmodo reports.
• Users who submitted reports cite worries about water use, power demand, and health. One estimate says a large AI data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, and a UK report warns emissions could be far higher than previously thought.
• Brockovich's site also tracks community responses, noting more than 15 local pauses or moratoriums on data centers and even a Missouri town where four city council members were ousted after a data center vote.