First crypto, now data centers: How tech is reshaping this North Carolina community
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. In Murphy, North Carolina, a peaceful mountain town once defined by birdsong and swaying trees, a steady electric hum cuts through the calm. The noise from a nearby cryptocurrency mine has intruded on Rebecca and Tom Lash’s lives since it opened in 2021. “There was nothing in this little pasture but these electric lines,” Rebecca Lash said, as she and Tom stood on the hill overlooking the mine. “And it was just nice and quiet.” The Lashes came to Cherokee County eight years ago to settle down and enjoy their older age in view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They grew more and more incensed as three cryptocurrency mines opened near their home within the last five years. Now, the landscape is shifting again as one of those mines becomes an artificial intelligence data center. Western North Carolina is seeing a local manifestation of a national trend. Across the country, communities that spent years trying to stop cryptocurrency mines are confronting a new and potentially larger wave of digital infrastructure that powers AI. As profits from crypto mining have fallen, the companies behind it have begun converting their operations into facilities designed to handle the computing that underpins that burgeoning industry. “The big AI centers and the big data centers, there’s some horror stories about people that live near those,” said Tom Lash. This transition is triggering a growing backlash. Residents and local officials in Cherokee County and beyond fear that these immense operations — which consume as much electricity and water as small towns — will alter rural communities with few land-use restrictions. Towns and counties across western North Carolina have begun passing moratoriums and considering new regulations as they scramble to respond to an industry many say arrived faster than local authorities could understand or control it. The