Liliana Vidales has more experience than most people with data centers.
xAI, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, about a year and a half ago established a supercomputer in Memphis, Tenn., where Vidales attended college. The facility, she said, brought “suffocating smog and pollution.”
She didn’t want it to happen again in Phoenix, her hometown. So, as city leaders considered whether to adopt a new zoning ordinance on data centers, she took the podium to support it. She urged officials to protect the local power grid and water supply…