Chelsea Bossert/Daily Mining Gazette Michigan Tech student Emma Goodman addresses Anti Data Center protesters Friday at the Portage Lift Bridge as part of a statewide protest. 

HOUGHTON — Artificial Intelligence Data Centers have entered local Michigan politics as of late. From Metro-Detroit all the way to the Upper Peninsula, the issue is inescapable. Local political activist groups, Keweenaw Indivisible and Keweenaw Against The Oligarchy, organized a Houghton Anti Data Center protest on Friday at Portage Lake Lift Bridge.

Part of a statewide effort to fight against data centers in Michigan, the Houghton anti data center protest featured over 60 protesters.

The protest featured guest speakers, ranging from KI and KATO representatives to Michigan Technological University students. The protesters supported both local and statewide demands, including a statewide moratorium on data centers, as well as developing local conversation on data centers in the Western U.P.

The guest speakers spoke about how local data centers contain a lot of political influence, but it is possible to fight back against them. Anti data center Efforts in Lower Michigan communities such as Saline and Howell and against the recent crypto mine in Dafter Twp, showed protesters the issue reaches across the aisle.

Michigan Tech student, Nolan Wright, spoke about why data centers — among other issues — do not provide more benefits than drawbacks. “What we want to tell you is that they’re not worth the cost,” he said. “There’s a data center currently built in Saline, Michigan. Their local energy provider, DTE, predicts they’re going to use 1.4 gigawatts of energy.”

Wright said this cost is going to be brought onto residents, as well as having a detrimental environmental impact. They also use obscene amounts of water,” he said. “Then they dump the water back in, heating up our lakes and rivers.”

Emma Goodman, another Tech student, spoke about the Dafter Township crypto mine and its effects on local residents. “It’s having an impact on a neighboring school,” she said. “It’s been constant noise and they’ve been trying to get the owner of the crypto mine to reduce the impact of the sound.”

It is not just crypto mines which make a noticeable amount of noise; the same concern is extended to data centers. Wright says the sounds from those operations can reach levels of noise pollution.

“The average data center noise level in neighboring properties, not on the data center itself, but the neighboring properties is between 55 and 80 decibels,” he said. “So all the cars passing today, none of them reach even close to what you’re gonna see in a data center.”

From noise and environmental pollution, to the economic impact, U.P. residents, including those at the Houghton protest, are concerned these issues could be in their backyard sooner rather than later. Goodman shared what concerned residents can do in order to prevent data centers from springing up in their neck of the woods.

“Just start getting involved in your local government, talk to your community, get involved in community efforts,” she said. “We will be attending township meetings and working with local leaders to draft township ordinances and moratoriums so that we can make sure U.P. communities are prepared when data center development starts looking to this area.”