Draining Vulnerable Communities to Feed the AI Race
The Intersection of Digital Transformation and Environmental Justice
While families in drought-stricken Texas are asked to ration water, a new wave of AI supercomputers is draining millions of gallons a day. This includes OpenAI’s massive “Stargate” campus near Abilene—a joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank—and Microsoft’s Azure facilities in Central Texas. The burden falls disproportionately on low-income, Black, and Brown communities already living with rising asthma rates, contaminated air, and unreliable utilities. These communities are being asked to sacrifice again for the so-called future of innovation.
Tech giants like Google, Meta, Apple, and OpenAI are leading the AI race, but with this new wave of technology, Silicon Valley’s biggest exports won’t just be technology and innovation—they will also be environmental and human harm. At mBOLDen Change, we believe progress should lift people up, not leave them behind. As AI reshapes our economy, education systems, and access to opportunity, we’re paying close attention to the human toll—a toll that isn’t shared equally. The same communities already facing disinvestment, environmental injustice, and poor health outcomes are being asked to shoulder the hidden costs of technological advancement.
This is the second in our series exploring how unchecked AI expansion threatens vulnerable communities. Today, we turn our focus to the environmental cost of the AI race—and who’s paying the price.
Winning the AI Race: A New Golden Age?
President Trump’s “Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan” is based on scaling back or eliminating regulations to establish the U.S. as a global leader in the technology. The plan’s introduction states:
“The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence (AI). Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits… Winning the AI race will usher in a new golden age of human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security for the American people.
We need to build and maintain vast AI infrastructure and the energy to power it. To do that, we will continue to reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape, as the Administration has done since Inauguration Day. Simply put, we need to ‘Build, Baby Build!’”
But, at what price?
AI already permeates our daily lives. It’s the GPS in our cars, the Ring doorbell, your playlists, the list goes on and on. Most of us can agree that convenience should never come at the cost of public health or the basic human rights to clean air and water.
Yet the current push to “win” the AI race isn’t about playlists or efficiency. It’s about enabling government agencies and private corporations to train models, simulate war games, and predict human behavior. It’s about supercomputers capable of performing a quintillion operations per second, running 24/7—draining the earth’s resources and jeopardizing public health. This isn’t just technological intensity: it’s capitalism at its most extractive.
To meet these demands, environmental regulations on data centers are being discarded. Not only is the planet being drained of critical resources behind closed doors, but entire communities—especially those already burdened by health inequities and economic instability—are being pushed closer to the edge.
AI is quietly becoming one of the most energy-hungry, resource-draining systems on the planet, with a massive environmental cost. To win the AI race, we must burn more fossil fuels, extract increasing amounts of lithium and rare earth metals, and hoard water—accelerating climate degradation in the name of innovation and American dominance.
Water, Power, and Public Health
To win the AI race, the data center industry and big tech firms are ramping up investments to construct the infrastructure needed to support deeper AI integration across every sector of society. The impact on affected communities? An afterthought.
Water has become as critical to running data centers as electricity. Enormous amounts of cold water must be pumped through pipes to cool the machines inside these centers so they can perform nonstop calculations.
Newsha Ajami, a hydrologist and Director of Urban Water Policy at Stanford, notes that data center companies often demand municipalities make as much water available as possible, leveraging the tax revenue they pay. Yet because electricity is costlier than water, companies often build facilities in regions with cheap power, even in drought-stricken areas. As Ajami put it: “Water is an afterthought. Someone will figure that out later.” But impacted communities can’t wait for someone to figure it out later.
Access to clean water and air is a basic human need.
In Texas, data centers are projected to consume 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, a number expected to rise to 399 billion gallons by 2030—nearly 7% of the state’s total projected water use. This is happening as some residents are urged to conserve water and face surcharges for high usage. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, data centers in Central Texas, including some run by Microsoft, used a combined 463 million gallons of water.
There are no regulations forcing AI companies to limit their water use. While tech giants profit, working-class families, small towns, and already stressed ecosystems are left to fend for themselves in an unregulated environment.
Besides draining resources, energy-hungry data centers generate increased fossil fuel pollution in the frontline communities where they are located. A recent study linked AI-related pollution between 2019 and 2023 to health costs of $17 billion to $29 billion, and to at least 1,100 premature deaths. Residents are suffering real consequences—higher rates of COPD, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses. Meanwhile, industry executives promote data centers as a benefit to local communities, touting job creation and infrastructure investment. But these promises are often a smokescreen for the public health fallout.
This isn’t a distant or abstract concern—it’s happening right now. As the advocacy group Perfect Union reports, Elon Musk’s massive xAI data center in Memphis is burning enough gas to power a small city—with no permits and no pollution controls. Residents say they can’t breathe and they’re getting sicker. The facility is part of the infrastructure powering xAI’s “Grok for Government,” recently adopted by the Department of Defense. Perfect Union’s reporting makes it clear: the so-called national interest in AI is coming at a direct human cost to communities already burdened by environmental injustice.
The Ethical Cost and the Cycle of Poverty
The environmental burden of AI is an ethical one. The burden isn’t shared equally. Black communities are 75% more likely to live near polluting sites. The same pattern holds for the power plants that run data centers, where over 60% in one state are located in areas with an above-average share of Black residents.
This environmental injustice is part of a cycle of poverty. Those trapped in environmentally degraded neighborhoods often face impossible choices. High medical costs, lower-paying jobs tied to poor health outcomes, and a lack of relocation options perpetuate generational poverty. This isn’t an accident—it’s by design.
The lack of transparency from AI providers and regulators makes it nearly impossible for communities to make informed decisions or protect themselves. Stripping away regulations only makes things worse.
As we pursue AI innovation, we can’t afford to ignore its fallout, especially for the communities most at risk. Government must intervene to regulate tech companies and their massive supercomputers, ensuring they don't shape the narrative—or the future—without accountability.
Collectively, we must all imagine a different path. One where AI models are smaller and more efficient, used more responsibly, and developed by a larger, more accountable ecosystem—not just a handful of Silicon Valley firms.
It’s not enough for tech giants to promise a brighter future. We must center the needs and health of vulnerable communities—and the planet—before it’s too late.
We’re told the AI race is in the national interest—that it’s simply the cost of progress. But when corporations prosper while working families ration water, breathe toxic air, and suffer in silence, that’s not innovation.
That’s exploitation. That’s capitalism.
At mBOLDen Change, we’re committed to building a stronger, fairer, and more equal society. That means blocking the harms inflicted on marginalized communities by extractive systems—and building toward systemic equity, where innovation no longer comes at the expense of human well-being or environmental justice.
This article is part of our ongoing series on the impact of AI on vulnerable communities, nonprofit systems, and the future of equity. Read our first post, and stay tuned for what’s next.