NEW: Climate Power Data Center Air Pollution Tracker Reveals How Top Tech Companies Are Powering The Data Centers Behind Their AI
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This is the first tracker to show how much air pollution the biggest tech companies’ data centers are generating
The pollution emitted by fossil-fuel-powered data centers can cause life-threatening illnesses, including asthma and lung cancer
Washington, DC – A new tracker unveiled today from Climate Power shows how the top eight hyperscaler tech companies are choosing to power their data centers — with polluting fossil fuels or affordable, clean energy. This is the first source of its kind, providing much-needed transparency into how top tech companies are powering their current and planned data centers and how much air pollution they are dumping into communities.
Choosing cleaner energy over gas and coal avoids increasing energy costs for Americans and cuts air pollution, but the Trump administration has actively pressured tech companies and data centers to use gas and coal for power over clean energy – against the overwhelming preference of the American people. Instead of holding tech companies accountable, the Trump administration is gathering tech executives and utility companies for toothless, voluntary “pledges” that won’t do anything to lower electricity costs for Americans. To make matters worse, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made it clear they are willing to give giant tech companies a pass when these gas-powered data centers destroy local air quality — even when they are breaking the law. This tracker, which is updated daily, gives the American people the transparency they deserve.
Climate Power Senior Advisor Jesse Lee issued the following statement: “American families deserve to know if the trillion-dollar tech companies bringing data centers to their towns are pumping life-threatening, toxic pollutants into their air – and they deserve a say. These companies can afford to power their data centers without spiking everybody’s utility bills or creating a new epidemic of air pollution. The Trump Administration is actively defending unlimited data center pollution in court, and Trump is even pressuring data centers to use methane gas and coal, but we’re peeling back the curtain on energy use and air pollution so that the American people can have full transparency and tech companies can be held accountable.”
The tracker, which uses data compiled by Cleanview, scores companies on a scale of 0-100 based on whether they burn gas behind the meter (BTM) and how clean the existing electrical grid is where they build.
Data centers powered by fossil fuels are polluting communities and harming public health:
- Climate Power polling conducted by GSG found that how data centers are powered makes a massive difference in how people feel about them coming to their communities. There is a 60-point swing between clean energy vs coal — the energy source that the Trump administration has been advocating for data centers — with coal underwater by 21 points.
- Approximately four million people live within one mile of EPA-regulated data centers, exposing them to elevated levels of diesel exhaust and other pollutants.
- Pollutants emitted by data centers can travel hundreds of miles, raising air pollution concentrations even in communities far from the data centers themselves.
- Planned data centers were projected to drive $5.7 billion to $9.2 billion in annual public health costs from air pollution, cause 190,000 to 300,000 asthma symptom cases, and cause between 370 and 595 premature deaths each year.
- One in five data centers in the U.S. are located in communities already overburdened by environmental pollution.
- In just 11 months, Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Memphis, Tennessee, which is the lowest-rated data center in the air pollution tracker, became one of the county’s largest emitters of smog-forming pollution in a predominantly Black neighborhood that already leads the state in asthma-related emergency room visits.
- In December 2025, the Trump administration established a data center team within the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, aimed at helping companies skirt protections as part of the administration’s AI push.