The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has become the first indigenous nation to officially ban data center construction on land under its jurisdiction.
After a tech startup approached Seminole leaders requesting permission for a data center on their lands, the Tribal Council voted 24 to 0 to impose “a moratorium on the progress of generative artificial intelligence technology and hyperscale data center development within the Seminole Nation and on tribal lands and territories.” native news online informed.
According to the news agency, the startup had asked the nation to sign both a non-disclosure agreement and a letter of intent to build the data center on its sovereign reservation. Glen Cheban Kernel, representative of the Mekusuki Band, a member of tribal council Those who introduced the proposal banning data center development first informed the public of the startup’s plans at a meeting on March 3.
At the meeting, dozens of tribal members and their non-Indigenous neighbors expressed their concerns over the data centers and their staggering environmental footprint. It is a widely popular sentiment throughout the United States, including among non-indigenous peoples. rural oklahomans. According to a recent survey, 39 percent of Americans said that data centers were “mostly bad” for the environment, while only 4 percent believed the opposite.
“When the public found out, there wasn’t really much debate,” Kernell explained. NNO. “We are just one voice on a rising tide of concerns. Our fight is just a small piece of the collective puzzle.”
Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led climate organization that runs the data center tracker, has joined with the Tribal Council to inform the public.
Crystal Two Bulls, executive director of Honor the Earth, said, “We commend the Seminole Nation for their leadership on this issue and we look forward to other tribal leaders doing the same.” nno. “As sovereign nations, we do not need to participate in colonial systems of generic AI and hyperscale data centers or their false, predatory economic promises at the expense of our lands and waters, communities and economies, security and sovereignty.”
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