Miss. Town Fights xAI Plant: 'It's Hard to Be Outside for Long'

For one Mississippi neighborhood, the AI revolution sounds like a 24/7 jet engine. In Southaven, Elon Musk's startup xAI has revived a dormant power plant and ringed it with 27 temporary methane gas turbines that residents say roar day and night as they feed electricity to AI data centers, per NBC News. The company plans to eventually install 41 permanent turbines on the 114-acre site, part of what Gov. Tate Reeves has said is a $20 billion-plus local investment that's the largest private one in state history.

Hundreds of people, however, packed a recent public hearing to denounce the noise, air pollution, and pace of expansion; no one in the audience spoke in favor. Neighbors describe sleepless nights and health worries. "It's hard to be outside for long when all you're hearing is this high pitch," one resident tells the Mississippi Free Press. "It's very difficult. ... I hear it constantly. If you wake up, you go to the restroom, you hear that." Another tells NBC he's worried about his property value. "I couldn't give my house away with all this noise," the 76-year-old notes.

The NAACP accuses xAI of running turbines without proper permits and is preparing a Clean Air Act lawsuit, while environmental advocates argue that the supposedly temporary units effectively function as a full-scale power plant. The Guardian cites a probe into the plant by Floodlight, which used a drone to poke around the site. Earlier this month, thermal images captured by the drone showed 15 turbines operating without permits, burning gas and spitting out pollutants into the air, despite a recent EPA decision that mandates a permit for such situations. Local leaders, meanwhile, tout jobs, tax revenue, and a $1.38 million donation to Southaven's police from an xAI affiliate, insisting quieter turbines and new sound barriers are coming, per NBC.