The NAACP is putting the tech industry "on alert" with new guiding principles demanding accountability from companies building AI data centers. The civil rights organization, already challenging Elon Musk's xAI facility in Memphis, released an exclusive framework to help communities fight back against data centers that rely on fossil fuels and worsen air quality in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
The nation's oldest civil rights organization just fired a warning shot across Silicon Valley's bow. The NAACP released an exclusive framework to The Verge demanding unprecedented accountability from tech companies building AI data centers, with a clear message: clean up your act or face legal action.
"It allows for tech companies to be on alert," Abre' Conner, director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP, told The Verge. "That if they do not meet our demands as it relates to the guiding principles, that if we move into other forms of advocacy including filing litigation, that there shouldn't be any shock or question as to why we're doing that."
The timing isn't coincidental. Electricity demand is rising in the US for the first time in nearly two decades, driven largely by massive data centers supporting AI advancements. But these facilities are increasingly powered by fossil fuels, creating a collision course between tech's AI ambitions and environmental justice.
The Memphis battleground illustrates what's at stake. xAI's data center has triggered a 79% spike in peak nitrogen dioxide levels in the surrounding area since beginning operations in 2024, according to research from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The facility neighbors predominantly Black communities like Boxtown, where cancer risks already run four times higher than the national average.
Aerial imagery obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center revealed 35 gas turbines that xAI installed at the site, which the NAACP alleges were running without proper permits. The Southern Environmental Law Center fired off a letter in June threatening to sue for Clean Air Act violations.
