Digital redlining: AI Infrastructure and Environmental Racism in Contemporary America

When tech giants build massive AI data centers, where do they choose to put them? This study reveals a disturbing pattern: companies consistently dump pollution on Black and Brown neighborhoods while building cleaner facilities in white communities. We call this "digital redlining" -- a modern twist on the racist housing policies that segregated American cities decades ago. Just as banks once drew red lines around Black neighborhoods to deny them loans, tech companies now target these same communities for environmental harm.
We studied three cases: xAI's Memphis facility in historically Black South Memphis, Meta's proposed data center in predominantly Black East Cleveland, and Facebook's pristine Prineville campus in a community that's 87% white. Elon Musk's xAI operates illegal gas turbines that spew dangerous chemicals into neighborhoods where cancer rates already run four times the national average. Meanwhile, Facebook's Oregon facility meets the highest environmental standards and receives millions in community grants. By overlaying historical redlining maps with current facility locations, a clear pattern emerges.
Using critical race methodology and comparative case analysis, we examined demographic data, environmental impacts, and corporate decision-making processes across these facilities. The evidence shows these aren't random business decisions -- they're calculated choices that exploit racial power imbalances. Companies systematically target communities with limited political power while avoiding wealthier, whiter areas.
This research exposes how supposedly neutral technology perpetuates racial inequality. Without intervention, digital redlining will create new geographies of environmental injustice lasting generations.