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Artificial intelligence is driving a data center building boom across rural America. Data center companies claim they bring economic prosperity to communities that desperately need it. But critics say these facilities strain water and energy resources while offering too few jobs in return, and they worry that the energy-intensive data centers also undermine broader climate goals. Monica Nickelsburg from member station KUOW has a story from one town in Central Washington.
MONICA NICKELSBURG, BYLINE: Ryan Beebout works for Sabey Data Centers, and he's giving a tour of their newest building.
RYAN BEEBOUT: Two hundred and fifty people work in this facility.
NICKELSBURG: It's a sprawling campus in the farming town of Quincy, Washington. We spot a data center technician between rows of servers lit up in orange and blue.
BEEBOUT: He's either installing a new server or he's troubleshooting an existing server.
NICKELSBURG: This job pays about $60,000 a year to start and it doesn't require a college degree, says Beebout. That's nearly double the individual median income for Quincy, where a lot of people still work in farming and food processing. Data centers like this make everything from ChatGPT to online medical records possible. And to towns like Quincy, they offer the promise of a new industrial anchor, bringing jobs and tax revenue.
LISA KARSTETTER: First time ever in my history of living in Quincy we had a full police force, because they can afford it.
NICKELSBURG: Lisa Karstetter, who grew up nearby, says she's seen the benefit of the data centers in the years since the first one went up in 2007. She's now Microsoft's community advocate in the area. The data centers pay about 75% of Quincy's property taxes.
KARSTETTER: New fire station, new library. You had all of these things come in that could support the agriculture. It really was a beautiful marriage.
NICKELSBURG: It's also the story of her own marriage. Her husband is a farmer. Data center taxes helped fund a new hospital and high school. Its state-of-the-art amenities serve about 850 students, most of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch.
NIK BERGMAN: It wouldn't have been possible without the data center presence here.
NICKELSBURG: That's superintendent Nik Bergman, watching summer volleyball practice in the high school's shiny new gymnasium.
BERGMAN: Very, very big sports town. I mean, you come here on a Friday night basketball game, it will be completely full.
NICKELSBURG: Quincy High also has a new vocational program where kids can study everything from fire science to sports medicine. If students want to go into one of the two big industries in town, they can take a data center technician track.
BERGMAN: They can earn a certificate and go work in - directly in the data centers out of the high school.
NICKELSBURG: Or study agriculture, which includes raising pigs and goats in the 4-H barn.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOATS BLEATING)
NICKELSBURG: There's no shortage of farming jobs in Quincy, but it's unclear how many data center jobs will be available to these students in the coming years. While the data centers are being built, there are thousands of jobs in construction. But each building can run with less than 50 technicians, according to Microsoft. To maintain the job gains the region has seen over the past two decades, the data center industry needs to continue growing here.
PATTY MARTIN: It's great to look at the economic benefits. That's a snapshot in time. That's something you benefit from right now. The question is, what's a long-term effect?
NICKELSBURG: That's local environmental activist and former mayor Patty Martin. So far, the Columbia River has sustained the growth of these data centers. Its dams supply cheap, clean, abundant energy and water for cooling them. But Martin worries about increasingly less snowpack to feed the river as the climate gets warmer. In this county, all the energy and water are already maxed out, and Martin thinks the data centers will get priority over residents.
MARTIN: They're going to run because they have sensitive information, right? You don't cool it, it's going to overheat. You're going to burn it up. You turn off the power, it's going to go away. So it's all about the data centers.
NICKELSBURG: The Grant County Public Utility District says that's not a big concern because it has the ability to buy more power on the open market at peak usage times. But some of that power comes from fossil fuels and may soon be off the table. A state law requires utilities to be carbon-neutral in five years and run exclusively on renewables by 2045. Local officials are pushing to make an exception for natural gas to provide additional power for data centers, and Martin worries that could undermine the state's progress on climate action.
MARTIN: I'm concerned that as that electrical energy need expands, that there is no type of electrical production that would be off the table.
NICKELSBURG: Companies like Microsoft say they're investing heavily in renewable technologies, like fusion, to bring more clean power generation online. But in the meantime, businesses and workers that rely on the data center building boom fear a slowdown. Pat Gallatin is an electrician who came to Quincy for what seemed like limitless job opportunities building data centers. He stopped by Monkey N' Around Pizza for the electrician union's weekly Brotherhood Night.
PAT GALLATIN: The first data center I worked on here was in 2006 or '05. And it was a sleepy little farming community. And since then, I bet you there's 20 data centers or better in the area.
NICKELSBURG: It's the kind of gold rush that leads a whole host of businesses to crop up, like the pizza joint that hosts this event every week. Sharyl Smith is the owner, and she says she's nervous about a building slowdown.
SHARYL SMITH: I'm not from here either, so my connections are the construction workers. So that's kind of - it's really scary.
NICKELSBURG: Like anyone who's come to rely on the data center boom, she fears all gold rushes end eventually.
For NPR News, I'm Monica Nickelsburg in Quincy. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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