AP NEWS PHOTO/ Jenny Kay
FROM THE THV11 NEWSROOM:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Little Rock residents concerned about AI data centers coming to their community gathered Saturday to discuss with their state representative.
“I don’t think a lot of us here, or a lot of residents where these AI data centers are being built, we don’t want transparency,” one resident said. “We just don’t want ’em.”
That statement sums up how most people seemed to feel at Little Rock”s Hinton Resource Center, where the meeting took place.
Kathy Wells with the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods organized the event.
“These data centers that are coming to our neighborhood, to our community,” Wells said, “We needed to find out more about that.”
One of the data centers will be near Wrightsville, a $6 billion facility by AVAIO Digital.
Another is coming to the Port of Little Rock, and sources say that Google is behind that one.
State Rep. Denise Ennett (D-Little Rock) represents the district that will contain both data centers.
She attended Saturday”s meeting to speak to residents and raised several of the same concerns they did about data centers- noise, utility costs, and environmental impact.
“With the public input, I think they can be beneficial,” Ennett said of data centers, “But without public input and transparency, that’s where the rub is for me.”
However, it seems as though it”s full steam ahead with these plans.
When AVAIO”s center was announced in January, Governor Sarah Sanders” office said it would provide jobs and multi-billion-dollar investments to its community.
Ennett has a meeting with AVAIO on March 31st.
“I want to know the environmental impact,” Ennett said. “I want to know about the tax incentives. I want to know what are the things that they’re going to do to make the community better.”
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