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by Madeleine Nolan
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — As artificial intelligence drives demand for larger data centers across the country, a Nashville councilmember is pushing to put rules in place before massive facilities potentially come to Music City.
Metro Councilmember Rollin Horton has filed legislation aimed at restricting and regulating large data centers in Nashville. If passed, the bill would create some of the first specific rules for large data centers in the city and potentially the first of its kind in Middle Tennessee.
Data centers are the physical buildings that power much of the digital world, from cloud storage and streaming services to AI chatbots and viral AI-generated videos.
Earlier this week, Kirk Offel, CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical, a data center developer, told FOX 17 News communities should not wait until a project arrives to set the rules.
“Get your policymakers to figure out how to write rules and regulate,” Offel said.
Horton said that is what he is trying to do in Nashville.
“When I was looking at what codes and protections and regulations, we have in Nashville to try to protect our communities from this, I found that we had none,” Horton said.
Tennessee already has dozens of data centers, including Meta’s massive campus in Gallatin. As AI demand grows, industry leaders say the facilities themselves are growing too.
“We started off with small scale data centers because the adoption rate of technology was small,” Offel said. “The demand of AI has made the demand for data centers grow at a level we’ve never seen before, the thing is we also have to go bigger."
Horton’s bill would restrict hyperscale data centers larger than 500,000 square feet in Nashville. Other large data centers would be required to go through a public approval process and follow rules on water use, emissions, power generation and noise.
The councilmember said the goal is to be proactive before Nashville faces the same concerns seen in other cities.
“We’ve seen that yield really bad results in places across the country, whether that’s Kansas City or elsewhere,” Horton said. “And so we try to take a proactive approach here and create these commonsense rules and regulations before it becomes a problem for us.”
The proposal comes as public concern grows around large data centers in Tennessee, including controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s xAI facility in Memphis. Critics have raised concerns about power use, emissions, water impacts and whether communities have enough input before large facilities are approved.
Horton said 14 councilmembers have already signed on as co-sponsors.
He said the goal is not to stop technology growth in Nashville, but to make sure large data centers are regulated before they arrive.
“Nashville is open for business,” Horton said. “If somebody is interested in operating a data center here, they should have no problem in complying with strict environmental standards and getting the community on side with them.”
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