As AI data centers crop up across the country, the Indigenous-led organization Honor the Earth has been building a grassroots network to resist the construction of such projects on tribal land.

“We typically have access to large tracts of land,” said Krystal Two Bulls, executive director of Honor the Earth. Add onto that jurisdictional issues, as each tribal nation is its own sovereign government with its own unique framework, and “it’s the perfect storm. We’re the perfect target,” Two Bulls said.

In Utah, for instance, businessman and “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary is proposing a 10,000-acre hyperscale AI data center—down from 40,000 acres proposed initially—that is estimated to raise the state’s carbon emissions by 64%. The Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, who live in the area, is holding tribal councils for community input. The Seminole Nation, meanwhile, has become one of the first tribes to pass a moratorium on AI data center development, and the Cherokee Nation established a task force to evaluate the impact of such projects.

For many, the debate over data centers harks back to the development of the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s, which connected railroads in the east of the country to the Pacific coast.

Since 2019, the Railroads in Native America Forum has gathered scholars and leaders from various tribes to discuss how the Transcontinental Railroad, portrayed in U.S. history as a defining moment of progress, built the country and changed Indigenous ways of life forever. At the forum’s third convening this year, which took place in Sacramento, one theme was especially prominent: extraction.

Multiple panels discussed not just what the Transcontinental Railroad took, but what it transformed. “Students should learn about the railroad as both infrastructure and invasion,” Hillary Renick, a panelist and president of the California Indian Land Institute, told Prism in an email. “These railroads initially served as conquest, aiding in the extraction of minerals.”

Read the full article about Indigenous nations debating data centers by Demi Guo at Prism Reports.