Friday, June 12, 2026

A Jackson Data Center: Threat or Opportunity?

Jackson Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote authored this guest column. 

Ranting about Data Centers is all the rage these days. Word got out recently of a developer exploring Jackson in hopes of building a new AI (artificial intelligence) data center. Who knew it would unleash a hornet’s nest of protests and gnashing of teeth? Opponents drove from 3 hours away to a City Council meeting just to share for 3 minutes their dire warnings of great troubles with data centers. That proves it is an important topic worthy of calm and rational discussion.

Some factoids on data centers:

The buildout of AI data centers is by far the hottest part of the U.S. economy. It is just getting started and already ranks as the biggest capital investment boom in American history, with hundreds of billions invested so far and trillions more expected by 2030. Some compare it to the advent of railroads 150 years ago – a boom that radically transformed America and its economy. Why all the excitement about AI?

AI is a paradigm shift in compute, not unlike the mainframe to the PC to the Internet to the smartphone. Its proponents claim it will transform and reorder the economy in the same way that previous paradigms have. Warehouses for computers and communication gear have been around for decades but AI, turbo-charged by Nvidia’s parallel processing chips, has enabled vast new compute capabilities. It is these new capabilities that have triggered the tech titans to open their checkbooks, join the AI race and shift their business models from capital light to capital intensive.

Two big concerns around AI data centers are electricity and water usage.

Electricity: The proposed data center in west Jackson calls for enclosed reciprocating engines powered by natural gas with no connection to the grid. Such an arrangement would have no effect on local electricity rates or availability.

Water: Jackson’s primary source for water is the Ross Barnett Reservoir, the largest surface source of water in the State of Mississippi at 340,000 acres, which is continually fed by the Pearl River drainage basin. When water is running over the spillway, which is most of the time, it contains 146 billion gallons of water. Thanks to JXN Water, Jackson’s two water plants are fully operational with capacity to produce 50 million gallons a day. The City’s water woes are financial in nature. The city needs more water customers paying their bills. A data center that uses lots of water and pays their bill is part of the solution, not part of the problem.

An upside surprise: A key feature of AI compute is its very large footprint versus previous compute paradigms and what that means in terms of ad valorum taxes. For 50 years compute devices have shrunk in size until now when the footprint of AI has exploded from angstroms to acres with campuses of bricks and mortar. The result is gushers of ad valorum tax receipts that will last for decades for the states, counties, municipalities and school districts that these data centers call home. The ad valorum tax estimates from Amazon’s data center investment in Madison County for County/City/Schools is $60 million a year for the next 10 years and $120 million per year for the following ten years. It doesn’t take AI to figure out how that can help a city budget.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leave it to the moron in ward 3 to cry racism and get the uninformed riled up over misinformation. Grizzle you are a real idiot on a special level of incompetence. Remember when he cried over Paul moak receiving fresh pavement… it seems Paul moak was the wrong skin color for ole Brian Grizzle the racist in charge of misinformation and ruin

Anonymous said...

If there is any copper wire in an AI center, it wont be there for long..

Anonymous said...

Rukia and Skyhook will be hollering.

Anonymous said...

The fact that Ashby fails to mention, is that data centers generate a lot of noise. While the upside might be increased tax revenue, the downside – electricity and water aside, is that they are noisy. I, for one, would find it extremely disturbing to have to listen to a hive of hornets in my back yard 24/7/365.

Anonymous said...

Like the other city councilmen at Jackson, Foote is largely incompetent. He is correct here though. A data center would help Jackson. They need it.

Kingfish said...

Grizzell is Ward 4. Stokes not only did not say anything about the Paul Moak road resurfacing, he came to the grand reopening.

Anonymous said...

It is being claimed that the engines driving the generators will be enclosed to deal with the noise. A class action lawsuit has been filed over the noise from the Southaven data center. There better be some acceptable decibel level that the Jackson data center cannot exceed.

Kingfish said...

Got the skinny on what happened up in Southaven. The company exploited a loophole. Once the permanent generators are built, they will be subject to a noise limit. However, no such limits exist for a temporary generator. From what I understand, such could not happen down here.

Anonymous said...

It can’t be denied that the data centers bring in big tax money. Jackson certainly needs that. I don’t see a downside since water is no issue and it won’t be connected to the grid.

Anonymous said...

Of course there are downsides to data center operations but there are also upsides which a city in Jackson's position cannot reasonably ignore. No development is perfect, there are always possible problems, but if the developer is willing to address those problems you can't simply dismiss the project because some other development in some other location did not address the problems. You take a calculated risk. Broke-ass Jackson should not have the luxury of denying an economic opportunity because of potential problems which could possibly be solved.

Anonymous said...

Very noisy indeed. Might cover up some of the gunfire though.

Anonymous said...

Data center ad valorem tax revenue is about the only thing that can save and resuscitate Jackson. The caveat is, what will CoJ do with said tax revenue? History shows that Democrats are masters of squandering tax dollars. Will they be like lottery winners who blow it all and go bankrupt?

Anonymous said...

Racism is very profitable.
So Grizzell just tells the plebes that it exists, even when it does not, and in turn he grows his wealth and power.
Its a shame the Low IQ crowd eats it up, but I doubt they will suddenly wake up and realize they are being abused by such leaders. C'est la vie

Anonymous said...

Lemme get this straight.
If Jackson is overlooked for a possible business investment in the area...That's racism?
And if Jackson IS offered new business opportunity, that is also racism?
Y'all are wild.

Anonymous said...

340,000 acres???

Anonymous said...

Do not be surprised if God punishes us for this AI wickedness. And that punishment will be our salvation because it will likely be a massive solar event that returns us to an 18-19th century technological style way of life. Saving us from ourselves.


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