JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Data centers are the backbone of the internet. Tech companies have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to build new ones, which are often hailed as massive economic development projects. But as Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom reports, data centers themselves create few permanent jobs.
STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: There's this stretch of flattened Mississippi land not far from the Alabama border that Lauderdale County has been trying to sell for a quarter century.
BILL HANNAH: Oh, we'll drive around and show it to you...
BISAHA: Yeah, please do.
HANNAH: ...If it's all right?
BISAHA: Bill Hannah is basically the county's chief salesman. Officially, he's the head of the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation. For 25 years, the county just couldn't find the right employer to transform all this grass and red clay into good jobs. But now, finally, Mississippi says it's got the right buyer.
HANNAH: All this stretch of land is about 300 acres, and it's going to be a data center campus.
BISAHA: Think of data centers as the place where the internet and digital economy physically lives. They make it possible for you to store your files in the cloud and run AI applications on your phone. Tech companies often build these centers on cheap rural land, and Mississippi is giving Compass Datacenters 10 years of state tax breaks to build here. For its part, Compass is investing about $10 billion.
HANNAH: This is the largest announcement, not in Meridian, in Lauderdale County, but in the state of Mississippi.
BISAHA: Largest announcement, like - what? - ever, or...
HANNAH: Ever.
BISAHA: Now, this is actually the second $10 billion data center project Mississippi announced in the last year. The state called that the largest economic development project in its history, which sounds like an economy-transforming event, like a car factory bringing in thousands of jobs. But the thing to remember about data centers is that they just don't hire many people.
KARTIK HOSANAGAR: Most data centers, you know, they employ about hundred to 200 people.
BISAHA: Kartik Hosanagar is the codirector of the Wharton Business School's AI research center.
HOSANAGAR: In fact, when Apple created a $1 billion data center in North Carolina, the news stories reported that there were less than hundred permanent jobs created as a result.
BISAHA: That's because unlike a factory that might need thousands of people to build their product, data centers don't create anything. It's more like a warehouse for computers running on really expensive chips. Compass Datacenters spokesperson Katy Hancock said in an email, the company plans to create initiatives to bring Meridian residents into the data center workforce, like the people needed to service those computers. The new centers should also boost surrounding businesses, like restaurants. But data centers also come with a really important cost that communities need to consider.
HOSANAGAR: Data centers are energy-hungry.
BISAHA: Hosanagar says in some states, data centers are consuming up to 5% of all energy used.
HOSANAGAR: It's a lot, and in fact, it's projected, in a matter of two to three years, in most states it'll be over 10%.
BISAHA: For some communities, keeping up with the power demand just isn't worth the few jobs that come with it. But Mississippi is all in. Mississippi Power agreed to keep burning coal at one of its plants for roughly a decade longer than planned. And for a small city like Meridian, Mississippi, Bill Hannah says the jobs that data centers will create should not be dismissed. After all, this project will be way bigger than your typical data center complex, and it's happening in a city with fewer than 35,000 people.
HANNAH: These types of projects don't have lots of people. When you put eight buildings out here and put 40 or 50 people in each building, you know, you're at 3- or 400 people. Well, that's significant in a community like Meridian, Mississippi.
BISAHA: And just the work needed to construct a multibillion-dollar facility means lots of jobs for the seven or so years it'll take to build. For NPR News, I'm Stephan Bisaha in Birmingham, Alabama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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