Willie Nelson Fights Back Against Texas Data Center Boom

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Iconic musician Willie Nelson has launched a fight against data centers

The singer-songwriter cites noise, light pollution, and water theft among other complaints, and underlines the importance of family farmers

The 93 year old country music icon’s statement was issued on Instagram

Willie Nelson has issued a strongly-worded statement about the growing impact of data centers on rural locations across the US.

Texas has seen an unprecedented data center boom over the past few years, with 300 installations already in operation and a further 250 planned, and facilities centered around Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. Only Virginia has more data centers.

The writer of Wake Me When Its Over has had hit records and toured extensively for the past 70 years, and grew up in the Abbott, Texas area.

Data centers are concerning Texans

Nelson has a long history of political activism, notably forming the Farm Aid benefit in 1985 with Neil Young and John Mellencamp, to support and increase awareness of American family farms.

The growth of data centers has unsurprisingly concerned Texans for some time, with matters coming to increasing prominence in recent months.

Nelson’s words of concern over the increasing number of data centers and their impact on rural communities in America’s second-largest state is the highest profile intervention, however.

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Nelson's unsurprisingly passionate and eloquent statement highlights many of the challenges that data centers pose.

With more facilities being built to handle AI processing, it could be argued that some data centers solve problems that don’t really exist, such as generative AI, a technology that Willie Nelson has previously expressed deep concerns about.

Willie Nelson and friends

Nelson is far from the only opponent of data centers, and is joined by others in the music community.

Georgia-born Gavin Adcock, who like Nelson grew up in a rural area, may have a very different persona but has also expressed opposition : “These rich, money-grabbing assholes that wanna slap a data center straight in the country,” and suggesting the facilities are built in cities instead.

Fellow Texan Tanya Tucker, meanwhile, has already issued a video in which she asks Texans to contact Gov. Abbott and request a pause on developments, noting “I’m concerned about the 765 KV of transmission lines coming through all the ranches in Texas, and destroying our property. It hurts. It’s gonna hurt our health, our wildlife, our water table, our water resources. It’s going to scar our land forever.”

While no tech companies have responded to Willie Nelson’s statement, Gov. Greg Abbott has stated that the Texas Legislature will begin hearings regarding data centers this week.