Artificial intelligence is fueling demand for data centers across the country, but in Lowell, one facility has become the center of a yearslong battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the OG, if you will, of data centers. Nobody knew what a data center was when it came to Lowell,\u201d said Jack Fortes, who grew up next to the site.<\/p>\n
Now, Fortes knows more than he ever thought he would. The backyard of his childhood home in Lowell has looked different ever since the Markley Group turned the old Prince Spaghetti factory into a data center.<\/p>\n
That was in 2015 \u2013 long before the AI boom began. Fortes says he\u2019s constantly listening for the diesel generators on the other side of the fence to fire up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these turn on, they pollute our neighborhood,\u201d he said. \u201cI just had that experience this morning. They turned it on for five minutes and filled up my entire yard with fumes\u201d<\/p>\n
Frustrated, Fortes started the group Honest Future for Lowell, which is fighting for environmental justice and community dignity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are all sorts of things that we have brought to the Markley Group to say how to fix this. Markley\u2019s like if you don\u2019t like it, leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Residents are working with environmental advocates to stop Markley\u2019s expansion plans. The lawsuit is ongoing.<\/p>\n
Alexandra Enriquez St. Pierre, vice president of the Environmental Justice Program at the Conservation Law Foundation, said the case is about giving residents a voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis entire case is about fairness and fairness to a community that\u2019s trying to go about their lives in a place they\u2019ve called home for years. And they just want to have a say in what that looks like,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jaclyn Casey, a marketing manager for the Markley Group, said the company is confident the case will be dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis claim has been submitted before and it was dismissed, so Markley is very confident that it will be dismissed again,\u201d said Casey.<\/p>\n
The Markley Group invited NBC10 Boston inside its Lowell data center to get a firsthand look at the operation.<\/p>\n
Inside, the facility looks like a normal office until visitors reach the uninterruptible power supply rooms, of which there are 18. The building also houses suites where servers are kept, though NBC10 Boston was not allowed to film those areas.<\/p>\n
Markley said its facility is different from the hyperscale data centers driven by the AI boom and that its Lowell site focuses on data needed for cloud computing and data storage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re serving hospitals, universities, police departments,\u201d Casey added. \u201cAnytime you’re looking up anything on your phone or sending an email, all of that has to go through our building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Markley staff gave NBC10 Boston a tour of the grounds. When asked about the diesel generators behind Fortes\u2019 home, Markley said each generator runs for five minutes every week, with no set schedule.<\/p>\n
Cooling fans on the roof have also been a point of contention.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is loud. It is regularly loud here,\u201d Fortes added.<\/p>\n
Markley employees said the campus is quiet, and that visitors are more likely to hear birds chirping.<\/p>\n
When asked whether any of the backlash from community members is fair, Casey said misinformation has played a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do feel like there is a lot of misinformation that has been put out there for sure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Markley said part of that misinformation comes from being lumped in with a different class of data centers now drawing national attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve been here for a decade, and these complaints really started coming up just as data centers, hyperscale facilities, and the AI boom are starting to reach the news,\u201d Casey added. \u201cSo we’re just trying to get ourselves away from that narrative to remind people of what we’ve always been here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since NBC10\u2019s visit, Markley Lowell has launched a website and Facebook page \u201cto communicate with our neighbors and provide a place to clear up misinformation about Markley’s campus and operations,\u201d according to the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
NBC10 Boston will continue this story with a closer look at the economic benefits of data centers, along with nationwide concerns over water use, electricity demand and environmental impacts as the need for these facilities continues to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence is fueling demand for data centers across the country, but in Lowell, one facility has become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,56145],"class_list":["post-108759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-lowell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}