60 Minutes Transcript: The data center uproar
America, and the world, are in the midst of one of the most profound technological revolutions in human history, with artificial intelligence poised to transform nearly every aspect of how we live and work. Behind this seemingly invisible revolution is something very physical: data centers. They are the factories of the AI age, vast industrial warehouses, packed with powerful computer chips consuming enormous amounts of electricity. With more than 3,000 of them across the country, and another 1,500 proposed, data centers are now one of the top issues in the midterm elections. So we went to Texas, where everything is bigger, including the development of data centers, to understand the backlash happening nationwide.
Norah O’Donnell: All this agricultural land will look like what?
Jazmin Villegas: It’ll be nothing but data center buildings, concrete.
Norah O’Donnell: This is just part of it?
Jazmin Villegas: Yes. This is just one little bit, as far as you can see.
Jazmin Villegas lives on this quiet farm just outside Dallas, Texas. When she learned that a data center campus almost three times the size of this one a few miles away would be built next door, this mother of five and Marine veteran felt called back to duty.
Norah O’Donnell: How did you become the go-to person at the center of this fight against the data centers?
Jazmin Villegas: Ma’am, just because I’m not in uniform doesn’t mean that my service to this country has ended. I stand strongly behind my oath that I took when I enlisted to, you know, protect and defend this Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Norah O’Donnell: And you believe the data centers are an enemy?
Jazmin Villegas: We’re not sure. That’s the thing. It might not be an enemy, per se. But how do I know that these chemicals or this pollution, water, air, noise, isn’t going to affect my community, isn’t going to affect me?
In town halls and on social media, data centers have become vessels for other worries and fears: of rising prices, the power of the tech elite, congestion and crowding, and a dawning AI era that threatens livelihoods and futures.
Resident at VA town hall: We are struggling to pay our bills.
In Loudoun County, Virginia, which has the world’s highest concentration of data centers, electricity bills have surged in the last year, at least in part because of growing power demand.
Resident at Arizona town hall: We live in the desert. We can’t waste water. They will waste water.
In Chandler, Arizona, residents worry about water being used to cool data centers when the state already has a shrinking supply.
And in Red Oak, Texas, where Villegas lives, construction workers’ cars clog the roads for miles before dawn.
There, they are concerned about all of these things. And they accuse the city council of operating in secrecy.
Resident at Red Oak town hall: And now you’ve been caught, you’ve been caught making decisions without transparency.
Jazmin Villegas: Not one single person in that room was for the data center. And the city council just went ahead and approved it.
Norah O’Donnell: How did that make you feel?
Jazmin Villegas: Angry. But instead of feeling defeated, it’s, like, “Oh. Challenge accepted.”
Michael Webber: The pressure is real, the people are concerned. And I think they have a right to be concerned because they don’t know what’s going to happen.
Michael Webber is a professor at the University of Texas whose specialty is the relationship between water and energy. When tech companies want to build in Texas, they call Weber for advice.
Michael Webber: I tell them, “You need to pay your taxes, and hire people, and be power-flexible, water-positive, and carbon-negative.”
Norah O’Donnell: You have kind of a less technical, more direct message for some of these tech companies.
Michael Webber: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t– don’t take the water. Don’t break the grid. Don’t ruin the land.
Webber says data centers have been around for decades, but the speed of the construction and the size of those built for AI are unprecedented.
Michael Webber: The primary difference is they’re larger. In the old days, and by old days I mean, like, two years ago, a large data center might have been five megawatts. A new data center for AI might be 1,000 megawatts. It’s, like, 200 times larger. So the scale is much different.
Norah O’Donnell: You look at the numbers. They’re mind-boggling. Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft expected to spend 1.5 trillion building data centers through next year. Why do we need so many?
Michael Webber: I talk to a lot of smart people, and some say this will satiate. But then there are other smart people who say the demand for intelligence will never be sated. So we will always want more data centers. We will always want more intelligence.
That intelligence developing inside these hulking warehouses, supporters believe, will generate what’s called “AGI” or artificial general intelligence, that can match or surpass human capabilities.
That means in addition to autonomous cars, and robotic factories, this additional computing power could pave the way for groundbreaking discoveries like curing cancer.
And data centers aren’t universally loathed – building trade unions want more because of how much skilled labor is needed to build them. On the issue of water, they often aren’t as draining as many believe. A CBS news analysis found golf courses nationwide use more than twice as much water as data centers.
Michael Webber: There’s a race to power, a speed to power right now, where all the AI companies are in a race to train up their models to win the AI arms race, they call it.
Norah O’Donnell: You’re saying this is like a new arms race?
Michael Webber: There’s national security implications on the line, as well as great economic gains on the line. We in America want to have it first before a bad actor, say, China or someone like that.
In Texas, attracting big tech was the goal of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Gov. Abbott at Google Texas announcement: Texas will be the centerpiece for AI data centers for Google in the entire world.
The Democrat running against him in November, Gina Hinojosa, has made data centers a key issue in her campaign and is calling for a temporary moratorium.
Hinojosa ad: Who authorized that? Greg Abbott. Abbott took 20 million in campaign donations from data center executives and companies.”
Governor Abbott has changed his tune.
Gov. Abbott: Pushing back against these AI data centers that are trying to build in our neighborhoods.
In August, he paused approval of new data centers that would draw from the state’s power grid until they complete an audit.
Dave Lowe: You know I worry about the traffic, the congestion, the– the noise. I worry about the environmental impacts and the impacts it has on– on where I live.
Dave Lowe lives right by the proposed data center in Red Oak – and told us he’s a lifelong conservative Republican.
Norah O’Donnell: Are you thinking about voting differently?
Dave Lowe: This is the first time in my adult life where there’s been an issue that’s come up that I feel like is going to directly impact me. And so this time around, I’ve made the decision that I’m not going to vote red or blue; I’m going to vote for the candidate that is willing to speak up, and put up, and do something to help us with this issue.
Opposition to data centers is one of the rare issues uniting Americans across the political divide. More than 60% of Republicans, Independents and Democrats all agree they don’t want a data center where they live.
Lowe and Villegas are part of a group of a few dozen Red Oak residents across the political spectrum who meet twice a month.
Their primary focus is stopping a developer called Compass from building 10 two-story data centers in their rural neighborhood, on agricultural land the size of Manhattan’s Central Park.
If completed, this would be just one of seven campuses set to cover more than a quarter of the entire town of Red Oak – population about 20,000.
We wanted to talk to Compass and local leaders to understand why they think this project would be good for the town.
They both declined to speak to 60 Minutes – but Compass CEO Chris Crosby said this in July.
Chris Crosby on podcast: We want to be part of the communities that we’re in. We want to be long-term job creators, we want to be places where there’s continued investment and growth that comes as a result of us.
Growth has also come to rural Hood County, 70 miles west of Red Oak, where there are nine proposals for data centers.
Dave Eagle is one of five elected officials on the commissioners court, which votes on them.
Norah O’Donnell: They come out here to this very rural area. Who do you think they think they’re dealing with?
Dave Eagle: They think that they’re dealing with some low information– how can I put it? Country bumpkins maybe, so to speak.
One of Eagle’s concerns is that the proposals are shrouded in secrecy.
Norah O’Donnell: What are some of the names of these proposed projects?
Dave Eagle: Well, they’re interesting. They– we have a Project Yellow, Project Red, Project Lion, Project Panther.
Norah O’Donnell: Do you think maybe these developers want to make it hard to keep track of them?
Dave Eagle: Yes.
Norah O’Donnell: How so–
Dave Eagle: Based on their track record– we’ve had to pry information out of ’em.
Last year, an out-of-state company came to the table with something they said would be a big win – but wouldn’t say who was behind it.
Dave Eagle: They just– basically approached us in a way that they’re going to bring a lot of jobs in here. They’re going to be good neighbors. They’re going to really upgrade the community. But they wouldn’t tell us exactly what they wanted to do.
Dave Eagle: They basically– came in here to razzle-dazzle me.
Norah O’Donnell: They tried to razzle-dazzle you?
Dave Eagle: I think so, when– I mean, how would you take it if it was you against eight others? It was kinda like, “Whoa,” you know. “This must be really big,” you know?
Two months later, Eagle found out they were really big. Amazon Web Services was behind the proposal. We obtained the pitch. They asked the county for up to 90% in property tax rebates for 30 years.
Norah O’Donnell: And you said?
Dave Eagle: “I can’t do that.” There’s no way I’d do that.
Norah O’Donnell: But wouldn’t bringing a big company like Amazon Web Services to Hood County actually lead to a lot more tax revenue that could benefit people here?
Dave Eagle: Sure. Could. Just suggest not giving 90% of it back to ’em.
Eagle voted against the Amazon Web Services project. But it is moving forward in the next county over, where AWS got the tax rebate it wanted.
In a statement, Amazon said, in part … “we ultimately decided to not build in Hood County…where we do invest, we work with local leaders to create jobs and generate revenue for public services…”
Blake O’Quinn is a third-generation Texas rancher. He’s worried there won’t be land for his cattle to graze or water for the herd to drink.
Norah O’Donnell: Do you feel like your way of life is being threatened?
Blake O’Quinn: I feel like if we don’t make a stand and educate the general public on what we do on a daily basis, yes, 100% it– our– our way of life can be threatened.
This technological revolution is expected to transform rural America – with two-thirds of the proposed data centers planned in places more used to farmhouses than warehouses.
Blake O’Quinn: We’re not all against change. That’s not it. But the values, the traditions. We were blessed with this land. We’re stewards of this land. We’re here to take care of it and pass it on to the next generation of Texans. Rural Texans are going to fight as hard as anybody, because that’s all we know how to do. We won’t give up. We’re going to keep fighting against big tech AI, and we’ll prevail.
Full statements from Amazon, Compass Datacenters, and Governor Greg Abbott in response to a request for comment from 60 Minutes:
Amazon spokesperson:
“Amazon evaluates many potential options to develop sites, and Hood County was one of those options. We ultimately decided to not build in Hood County, and we received no incentives from the county. Where we do invest, we work with local leaders to create jobs and generate revenue for public services, while supporting workforce development and infrastructure improvements that help communities build a stronger future.”
Compass Datacenters:
“Compass Datacenters is proud of the strong partnerships we have with local residents, civic organizations, educational institutions, and public officials in Red Oak and across Ellis County. For more than five years, we have worked closely with the community to understand their priorities and incorporate their feedback into our projects. Those discussions have been critical in shaping our operations, from closed-loop water systems to investing in the electric grid without shifting costs to homes and businesses. Compass will continue to engage directly with local stakeholders to strengthen our partnerships.”
Gov. Abbott spokesperson:
“Governor Abbott’s position is clear. Texans come first. Data centers will not connect to the Texas grid until the ERCOT audit is complete and the project meets the Governor’s requirements. He directed the PUCT and ERCOT to ensure data centers pay for their own electricity infrastructure, do not take water needed by communities, do not take power needed by Texas families, do not disrupt neighborhoods or rural communities, and do not raise costs for residential customers. Any project that fails to meet these standards will be denied connection to the Texas grid.”
Produced by Roxanne Feitel. Associate producer, Julie Morse Goff. Broadcast associates, Paloma Vigil and Gianna Totani.Edited by Thomas Xenakis.
