JACKSON, Miss.—Jason Haley and Shannon Samsa drove three hours from Southaven, Mississippi, to Tuesday’s Jackson City Council meeting with a warning: Don’t make the same mistakes Southaven did with data center construction.
“Every city, every mayor, everybody thinks, ‘Hey, this is going to be different. We’re not going to do it the same. We’re going to protect y’all,’” Haley said. “That’s not what happens once y’all sign to let these data centers come in. They’re going to do whatever they want… skirt every law, use every loophole they can possibly do.”
There are no data centers yet in Jackson proper. But the council met Tuesday to consider a six-month moratorium on data center construction in the capital city. The moratorium, if passed, would give the City time to study the issue and draft regulations for AI companies that want to host data centers in Jackson…