Big Tech Colonizing Alabama With Hyperscale Data Centers

Alabama the Beautiful, is known for being the single state within the USA that has the most navigable inland waterways. For Alabama has over 1,400 miles of commercially navigable channels. Along with 132,000 miles of rivers and streams that wind their way throughout Alabama. Such river systems are an ecological gem for Alabama. As they lead to Alabama having more native types of freshwater crayfish, fish, turtles, snails, and mussel species than any other state in the USA. According to the Alabama Rivers Alliance, Alabama also maintains the distinction of having the world's greatest diversity of temperate freshwater fish, with 312 freshwater species of fish calling Alabama home and over twenty of those being endemic to Alabama.

According to the Alabama Rivers Alliance, there are more species of fish in Alabama's Cahaba River, alone, than in the entire state of California. Yet, Silicon Valley in California is eyeing Alabama, not for the fish, but for its hyperscale data centers. As the limited power availability and real estate constraints of Silicon Valley make hyperscale data centers more and more difficult in California, Big Tech is eyeing other places in which to put their water draining and energy depleting hyperscale data centers. With Alabama being seen as having abundant and affordable power for Big Tech, vast tracts of available land, and a good geographic location for high-speed fiber connectivity since the state of Alabama is located at a vital junction for regional and national connectivity.

Consequently, Google LLC has established its 143 Megawatt data center in Bridgeport, Alabama on the site of a decommissioned Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant. It is built on a massive 260 acre campus in Jackson County with Google LLC investing over $2 billion into the hyperscale data center. While locals haven't been able to halt the construction of the hyperscale data center, concerned residents in Jackson County have led to the Jackson County commissioners unanimously agreeing to ban data centers, their associated accessory structures, and affiliated businesses that went into effect on June 23rd.

Meta, which is still more commonly known through its original name of "Facebook", has a 214 Megawatt hyperscale data center in Toney, Alabama, which is in the Huntsville area of the state. Since it is located in an established industrial area, the over $1.5 billion campus has not received much organized opposition from local residents. Nevertheless, residents near the Meta Data Center in North Huntsville, have complained of constant bright lights around the center, horrible constant noise, and problems with their tap water.

Logistic Land investment LLC has a planned 1.2 Gigawatt hyperscale data center named the Project Marvel-Bessemer Hyperscale Data Center for Bessemer, Alabama. While local residents have expressed environmental and safety concerns related to the planned hyperscale data center, their lawsuit alleging the city didn't provide the proper public notice about rezoning the initial 700 acres of timber land for the hyperscale data center was recently dismissed by the Senior Circuit Court Judge of Jefferson County, David Hobdy. With the city of Bessemer already having difficulties with their city water, residents are concerned that the hyperscale data center comes at too heavy a "price tag for some of our natural resources, like power and water."

The Nebius Birmingham AI Factory hyperscale data center is under construction amidst opposition from local residents. It is a planned 300 Megawatt facility that is receiving opposition from not just the local residents, but also the Greater Birmingham Humane Society. As the humane society has spent years, "planning and building a first-of-its-kind medical-model animal care campus designed to serve injured, abused, neglected, and homeless animals from across our community", only to find that the Nebius hyperscale data center is going to be built 1,200 from the humane society's future, "animal healing campus".

Even The University of Alabama is joining in the hyperscale data center frenzy as it is building a 14.6 Megawatt, "University of Alabama High Performance Computing and Data center" right in Tuscaloosa. To have such an entity right within the proximity of young developing college students is a matter of concern, especially given that data centers emit dangerous pollution through the air.

Other AI data centers that are under construction throughout Alabama include the Digi Power X Columbiana AI Data Center which is a 40 Megawatt planned facility in Columbiana. A Project Red Clay one by Cloverleaf Infrastructure that is a 1.5 planned Gigawatt facility in Lowndes County, Alabama that would consume 100,000 gallons of water on a daily basis. Edged Energy is also proposing a $93 million data center in Prichard, Alabama on Telegraph Road where an abandoned 911 data center used to be located. 200 people met in the Prichard City Hall Auditorium to voice their opposition to the Edged Energy data center, in spite of the auditorium having no air conditioning that day. Southern Company currently operates a 3 Megawatt data center in Birmingham. With DC Blox operating a 5 Megawatt one in Birmingham and a proposed 5 Megawatt expansion of the same. DC Blox also operates a 13.5 Megawatt data center in Huntsville with a proposed 5 Megawatt expansion to its Huntsville data center. DC Blox also has a planned 40 Megawatt data center for the Montgomery area. Core Scientific Inc. is planning a 50 Megawatt expansion to its AUBix Auburn Data Center. With Western Hospitality Development planning a 500 Megawatt data center in Childersburg, Alabama.

While hyperscale data centers are being provided various kinds of tax incentives by the state and the cities in which they are located to come to Alabama, critics of hyperscale data centers throughout the nation point out that data centers are "among the least labor-intensive structures in the economy". Hyperscale data centers are seen as creating construction jobs while they are initially being built, but comparatively few permanent positions once the construction phase of the project is over. A recent study by Brookings found that while data centers do create local jobs, they tend to be "fewer than industry advocates claim". With, "Naïve estimates that fail to account for preexisting growth trends, overstating the effect by a factor of three."

While hyperscale data centers are not in and of themselves mass surveillance systems, citizens across the USA have raised concern about hyperscale data centers and mass surveillance since they do provide the basic infrastructure to enable mass government surveillance. With hyperscale data centers having the computational power that is needed to process, store, and analyze data such as Artificial Intelligence algorithms and facial recognition. The concerns over mass surveillance along with the environmental impact of hyperscale data centers have led many residents in Alabama to form groups such as "Alabama Citizens Against Data Centers", "No Data Center In Childersburg", "Stop the Lowndes County, AL Data Center", "Alabamians Against AI Data Center", among others.

On March 07th, 2026, The Great Seminole Nation of Oklahoma made history by becoming the first Native American tribe to implement a complete moratorium on hyperscale data centers. With the Seminole Nation's Tribal Council unanimously approving a resolution by a 24 to 0 vote to bar, "any inquiries, discussions and/or developments concerning any entity seeking to develop a data center of any size within the Seminole Nation during the moratorium period." For as the representative of the Mekusukey Band of Seminoles stated, "This is the threshold. There's no turning back. Once we've used up and contaminated all of our water sources, this it it." The tribal council's vote came after a tech startup approached the Seminole leaders to allow a data center to be built on their lands.

The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma emerged from primarily the Muscogee, also known as the Creek, Native Americans who migrated from Georgia and Alabama into Florida in the 1700s and then were forcibly removed to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears. With many of members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma sharing cultural and ancestral affiliation with the original inhabitants of the Moundville archaeological site in Hale Country, Alabama.

Luisa Reyes is a Tuscaloosa attorney, piano instructor, vocalist, poet, reporter, and columnist who writes on politics, current affairs, and the arts.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Alabama Gazette staff or publishers.