- Wow.

It's just pouring out of that stack.

When you see this much color on the screen like this, what does that tell you?

- It's showing a heat signature, so we know that pollution is happening at this site.

- This is Stargate, one of the largest AI data centers in the world.

It's currently under construction in rural Texas.

Stargate will eventually include 4 million square feet of buildings across 1100 acres that's larger than Central Park.

- When we get a look at it, we'll get a real sense of the scale that is involved here.

I mean, this is a massive, massive site.

- It's estimated that by the year 2030, companies will have invested nearly $7 trillion in data center infrastructure in a race to dominate the AI market.

But this race to build AI superiority is happening so fast.

Many are concerned that companies might be cutting corners or taking advantage of regulatory loopholes, especially when it comes to the electricity and water required to run these massive data centers down down.

Not ever want any questions answered.

We just want it stopped.

People over profit, people all over the US are raising the alarm about the impacts that these data centers could have on their health, their homes, and their livelihoods.

Evan Simon has been investigating data centers around the us.

He's already found that some AI data centers are brazenly defying environmental laws and regulators are doing little to stop it.

- There's really a transparency issue around the AI industry right now.

It feels like a really important time for us to really pay close attention to these things.

- We are teaming up today to take you up above for a different perspective on this science story.

Using a drone fitted with a thermal camera to investigate what's really happening at one of the world's largest data centers and how it's impacting the people who live in its backyard.

- There are a lot of people that have not seen what we hope to show through the drone footage, especially the thermal drone footage.

- Is this even legal?

- All right, so this looks like any other drone.

- Regardless of how you feel about AI itself or the way that it's being rolled out, one thing is inescapable.

Despite tech companies making promises about renewable energy and sustainable technology, much of this massive AI expansion is still being powered by fossil fuels.

Your AI query likely pings a data center like this full of millions of power hungry processing chips, running the chatbots agents and other tools that millions of people interact with every day.

But to power those operations data centers around the country are increasingly relying on their own custom built gas power plants.

The Stargate Data Center already has 62 diesel generators and 10 gas powered turbines on site with plans for 41 more.

This will make it one of the largest fossil fuel power plants of any kind in Texas, and it's just to power this data center.

Why is it so important that we keep an eye on this growing industry?

- There's a lot of secrecy surrounding these sites.

Public officials are signing NDAs.

Companies are using propriety information shields and state and federal regulators don't seem like they're able to keep up.

So we feel like it's really important at our newsroom to monitor what seems like a fairly lightly regulated industry, especially as it grows at such a rapid clip.

- New facilities like this are being built largely to meet demand for generative AI tools like chatbots.

OpenAI reported that global use of chatbots more than doubled in the last year.

Going from 400 to 900 million users.

- Growth is the number one concern for all of these data centers.

They're trying to beat everybody else in being the first to really harness the profitability around ai, and for them, that really means essentially getting as much power as fast as they can.

- Big tech companies are projected to spend more than $800 billion on the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence in 2026.

And in 2027, that number will exceed a trillion dollars.

That's on par with the entire US defense budget.

Stargate is one of the most ambitious and powerful AI data centers ever built.

The proposed onsite power plant could deliver more than 1.7 gigawatts of power.

That's enough energy to power more than 1 million homes for a year, and the plant will emit more than 7.8 million tons of greenhouse gases each year.

That's the annual emissions of about 2 million cars.

Satellite imagery reveals the enormous impact that has made to the landscape from 2024 to today, and the construction still hasn't been completed.

We're driving around and we still haven't gotten a clear look at this place, and I think that's why the aerial view is gonna be key to figuring out what's going on here.

- Our thermal drone is just one part of our reporting process.

We still heavily rely on more traditional forms of investigative journalism, mainly public records requests, so we often use a combination of public records requests and innovative things like thermal imaging to really get a sense of what exactly is happening at these facilities - From the outside.

This just looks like a gigantic building.

What's happening inside of there that is like causing all this demand, causing this race for energy.

- The computer processors or GPUs that are inside of these massive data centers require enormous amounts of energy.

It's really hard to get a sense of actually how much energy is pulsing through these facilities, and so that's why we've started to incorporate a thermal drone to really try to get a sense of what is actually happening at these facilities.

- Omaira Garcia or OG, as she likes to be called, lives right next door to Stargate, we launched the thermal drone from her property to get a look at what's really going on.

- My husband and I both served in the military.

What initially brought us to Abilene was his military service.

After being here for a couple years, we really just kind of fell in love with it.

It took us a year to find this property, just the views, the horizon, the sunrise, the sunset.

It was just our own little piece of happiness.

Come on, come on.

In 2025, Stargate started to break ground on the property and all of a sudden life changed.

We had no idea what they were building there, and then we heard that the reason we couldn't find out what they were building there was because people were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and when they get there, there's just dust flying everywhere.

We started taking a poll to see how often we have to change our filters, and it's every two weeks 'cause they're completely filthy and full.

- All right, so this is what it looks like in a standard drone shot, but watch what happens when I switch to thermal.

- Wow.

- It's important to note that it's not showing us the specific pollutants or specific gases that are emitted by these turbines, but just by showing us that heat signature, we know that pollution is happening at this site.

- Gas turbines like these are essentially jet engines that generate electricity, and they emit a lot of greenhouse gases and harmful air pollution, which is linked to asthma, heart attacks, and even premature death.

The day we filmed Stargate was only operating one of the 10 turbines that it has on site, but it eventually plans to have more than 50 of these turbines powering its operations here, something OG was unaware of until we informed her.

- I didn't know about their expansion plan and what that looks like for our home.

If we're already dealing with the noise difficulty with only 10 turbines that they have right now, I can only imagine how much more difficult it's gonna be.

Like I feel trapped.

You know, we invest in our home, we serve our country, and we weren't even included in this process.

We weren't given any time to understand what this impact was gonna be on us.

The long term ramifications, we weren't given time to try to leave.

So how do I feel upset?

- It is absolutely shocking to see that invisible pollution made visible like this.

This is incredible.

So how can you tell if a facility like this is following the law?

- Well, we're gonna take these images to a series of experts to really make sure that we understand what we're looking at, but you'd be surprised what I've found in the past.

- Evan's investigation previously took him to South Haven, Mississippi, another community being impacted by a giant new hyperscale AI data center, xAI's Colossus, which helps power their chatbot Grok - In this drive for speed, this race for AI dominance, Elon Musk and xAI parked these massive turbines on tractor trailers to power their operations.

They then argued that these were temporary power sources and therefore did not require state or federal permits to operate.

That is really out of step with longstanding EPA policy that turbines like these, which are major pollution sources, require permits.

Regardless of whether or not they're considered temporary or not.

- We genuinely just don't understand how they're still allowed to run their turbines right now.

There's people in the very neighborhood that we're standing next to right now that probably still have no idea, just because it's been kept so quiet, - Even people that are living really, really close to it, never really got a good sense of what was there in their backyard.

- I did not discover that the power plant was going to be built until it was actually here.

There wasn't a public meeting or anything like that.

It was just kind of here all of a sudden, which was a big shock and a big surprise.

- I was really fortunate to speak with a resident who has a home directly across the street from the South Haven gas plant, a woman named Crystal Polk, and she agreed to let me fly the drone from her property.

As soon as the drone rose above the tree line, I could see that a number of these turbines were emitting very, very strong heat signatures, at least a dozen, and it seemed to me very obviously, that these turbines were operating, - Having turbines running so close to my home that are unpermitted is a very deep concern.

I'm severe asthmatic as well as some of my children.

I am very concerned about what is gonna be in the air and how it's gonna affect my health.

We were going to retire here, but now we have emptied the house of all furniture because of the pollution.

I think I shed a few tears because it's been my forever is where I grew up.

- The bring your own power plant strategy seen at Colossus was once an outlier in the industry, but this strategy has gone mainstream and nowhere is that more apparent than in Texas.

There are roughly 300 data centers here in Texas with at least a hundred currently under construction with an additional a hundred more planned, and the vast majority are powered by fossil fuels.

Texas has around 80 gigawatts of natural gas power under construction, and roughly half of those plants will provide power exclusively to data centers without even connecting to Texas's electrical grid.

Some of these approved sites are massive.

One approved site in West Texas is slated to generate nearly eight gigawatts alone, making it the largest proposed data center in the country.

That eight gigawatts is roughly enough to provide electricity for more than half the homes in the state, but that power will be off the grid solely for one data center.

While this so-called behind the meter strategy can reduce strain on the grid and might keep electricity prices down for consumers, it also means more power plants emitting more harmful pollutants across the state.

The companies building these data centers almost always promise that they'll use renewables or nuclear when they announce their projects, but when you look at the data, most of what's actually being built right now is powered entirely by natural gas.

It will be at least 2028 before renewables power AI at any real scale and new nuclear plants are a decade or more away.

These fossil fuel powered facilities generate fine particulate matter widely understood to be detrimental to human health.

One study estimated the healthcare related costs for people living near a similar Virginia power plant could be up to a hundred million dollars a year, and that's not the only risk.

Researchers have shown that data centers create their own heat islands raising temperatures nearby by as much as two degrees Celsius through their heavy use of industrial equipment and energy consumption.

AI chips and models are becoming more efficient when it comes to power and heat, but those efficiency gains are being exceeded by overall growth in AI usage in part as a result of that efficiency gain.

This is a well-known phenomenon in technology innovation called the Jevons Paradox.

It was first described in the 1860s.

The English were concerned about running out of coal, their main source of power.

Some argued that as coal burning plants became more efficient, less coal would be used.

But economist Williams Stanley Jevons showed that increasing efficiency wouldn't save coal because cheaper, more efficient power would lead to an overall rise in demand for coal.

Hyperscalers like Stargate may be getting more efficient, but if the Jevons paradox holds up, those gains will be erased by the increased demand for AI.

Electricity isn't the only concern.

The tens of thousands of high-powered chips inside a data center like this generate enormous amounts of heat requiring massive cooling systems to prevent failures.

Stargate uses a closed loop cooling system that circulates water to pull heat away from the machines.

While these systems usually only need to be filled once they do require more electricity to run.

By some estimates, the rise in data centers in the state of Texas could increase water usage a whopping 9% by the year 2030.

We took the footage we gathered to OG to show her what was taking place just next door to her home.

- From my experience, I can tell that this plume right here is a very large heat signature.

That's just one.

That's just one.

- It's crazy to see it from this perspective.

It just shows how close - That means that they're running it full tilt essentially.

You can't really get a sense of it without the thermal, you know?

I mean, this is what it, it looks like to you and, and I know that's alarming in and of itself, but once you see the thermal, it is really a completely different matter.

- Yeah, it looks, it looks off.

It just looks like a structure, - Right?

Exactly.

I mean, that thing is just cooking.

Yeah, and then there's a plan for 51 of these in total at this site.

They wouldn't - Put these here unless they plan to use them.

- That's the idea.

I mean there, there is literally a shortage of these turbine turbines nationwide.

Companies are scrambling to stockpile them, make orders years in advance now to try to get as many of these as possible.

You don't get these kinds of turbines unless you plan on turning them on.

This is what it looks like in her front yard, and to hear her tell it, she had no idea that this was coming until it was essentially there.

- That's, that's almost unconscionable.

You know, - Kathryn Guerra spent years at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and is now at Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group.

So she's uniquely qualified to help us make sense of what we saw in Abilene and to figure out if Stargate is operating under the appropriate rules.

- These initial permits came in at a lower level authorization called a permit by rule.

With permit by rules.

They are activity specific.

So for example, an autobody shop would get a permit by rule authorization, or a dry cleaner would get a permit by rule authorization.

When a data center pursues these lower level pre-construction authorizations, that grants them the authority to begin operating with no public notice requirement and no public input or participation, that feels pretty intentional.

- So that kind of approval process happening so quickly seems possibly appropriate.

If we're talking about an autobody shop or a laundromat, does it make sense for a large scale power plant that could theoretically power hundreds of thousands of homes?

- Not to me it doesn't.

- As it seeks to expand, Stargate, developers have since applied for other permits that seem to better suit the sprawling data center.

Critics say this small, first, big later strategy enables data centers to get a foothold in a community without public and to make it harder or even impossible to stop them once construction has already begun.

But even with the correct permits, Kathryn seriously doubts that the Texas environmental regulatory bodies have the capacity to hold polluters accountable.

- The data center industry is expanding at a rate that is beyond the capability of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to sufficiently regulate.

We have seen enforcement cases this past year that were 10 years old, - So it seems like what we saw at Stargate is allowable operations under the permits that they currently have.

Does that make it okay, still, in your opinion?

- These air pollutants, they don't go up into the atmosphere and go away.

We know that these facilities are emitting volatile organic compounds, nos and particulate matter, and the health impacts are respiratory, cardiovascular, you know, people with asthma or children and elderly people in these communities.

Those are the folks that are gonna be suffering from this air pollution and massive amounts of air pollution.

- Stargate was still under construction when we visited, so most of the turbines were sitting idle, but one day soon, this site could host a city's worth of polluting exhaust stacks.

At this point, this campus may be adhering to the permits that they've been issued, but there are huge questions as to whether those permits are appropriate for a facility like this, and whether private energy grids like this are sufficiently regulated for safety and pollution.

There's so much that is unseen in these operations.

Why are journalists like you doing this observation instead of regulators?

- Well, right now what we're seeing at the administration is a lot of pro AI policies coinciding with the gutting of various environmental agencies and enforcement agencies.

So it's really unsure if we weren't doing this kind of work, if anybody else would be.

- Some of these companies have made promises that these very same AI technologies could help us solve climate change.

What is your take on that?

- You hear that a lot from folks like Sam Altman himself who said that, you know, AI can fix climate change and can cure diseases and all these things, and while there may be enormous potential for that kind of thing, the experts that I've been talking to say that that just isn't happening at scale right now.

The primary use of these data centers is to power chat bots, and that's what they're being used for.

- I can't even begin to understand what that's what kind of impact that's gonna have on me and my health in the future.

I'm concerned with that.

When you invest in a home and you recognize you're doing all the right things to try to just enjoy your life and you feel like your home is being infiltrated on, it's kind of hard to find motivation.

Yeah, so I don't know what the future looks like.

- We've been promised a future where artificial intelligence can help us solve some of our biggest problems, curing diseases, cleaning the air, powering a better future.

But right now in the present, the machines that are building that future are being powered by some of the dirtiest possible imaginable power sources.

They're being built in people's backyards, drawing down our water supply, affecting the lives of people who live nearby.

But what if we could build that promised future without breaking the present?