After vowing to spend $20 billion on data centers across Pennsylvania, Amazon is now quietly reaping the rewards of a controversial, yet lucrative state tax exemption, records show. Exactly how much Pennsylvania could be forgoing from the tech behemoth is unclear, even as it expands its footprint across the state. In 2025, Amazon announced it would funnel its first investments into two data…
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As a United Nations expert reiterated a call for a global ban on nonessential uses of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a Swedish nonprofit on Monday released research on how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and related data centers are helping to drive a surge in PFAS production. Often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in human bodies or the…
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Americans don’t agree on much, but that’s not the case when it comes to data centers. Seven in 10 Americans oppose building data centers for artificial intelligence in or near their communities. Despite this, the federal government is moving to make it easier for them to be built. And in some places, residents won’t even get the chance to raise concerns publicly or even know if a data center…
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On July 13, residents of Neptune Township, New Jersey, voted to ban AI data centers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jails from being built in their town. While protests against the construction of AI data centers and ICE facilities have increased since Donald Trump’s reelection, the Neptune Township ordinance is the first in the U.S. reflecting a connection between the deportation…
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Is AI superintelligence inevitable? AI safety researcher David Krueger says it doesn’t have to be. Krueger, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and founder of the nonprofit Evitable, warns that “we need to mitigate the risk of extinction” with regulation and moratoriums to halt the development of AI’s computational power and complexity, which he says is progressing at a rate much…
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“It comes down to the stealing of everything that is and the taking of everything that is,” says Joseph White Eyes. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” host Kelly Hayes talks with Native organizers Joseph White Eyes and Krystal Two Bulls about the struggle against data centers in Native communities. The conversation explores how the AI boom is advancing a new era of colonial extraction…
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