What $10 billion in data centers actually gets you
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode: Why data centers create few permanent jobs. And why communities might want them anyway.
Related episodes:
Why China's DeepSeek AI is such a big deal (Apple / Spotify)
Is AI overrated? (Apple / Spotify)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:01.7 | This is the indicator from Planet Money. |
| 0:13.5 | I'm Adrian Ma. |
| 0:14.5 | And today we're joined by friend of the show, Stephen Bessaha, from the Gulf |
| 0:18.3 | States Newsroom. |
| 0:19.3 | What's up, Stephen? |
| 0:20.1 | Hey, it is good to be with you, |
| 0:21.6 | Adrian, and, you know, I live in Birmingham, Alabama, but today we're traveling just across |
| 0:26.7 | a state line to Meridian, Mississippi. Road trip. Oh, we're driving around and show it to you. |
| 0:33.0 | Yeah, please do. Our tour guide is Bill Hanna. He's head of the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation. |
| 0:39.4 | Basically, think of him as Meridian's chief salesman. |
| 0:42.8 | Now, Meridian, it is like a lot of small cities in the south. |
| 0:46.3 | Great food, small town charm, and hunting for that one big break to turn around its poor economic fortune. |
| 0:53.8 | And Bill says that big break could finally be here. |
| 0:57.0 | This is the largest announcement, not in Meridian in Lauderdale County, but in the state of Mississippi. |
| 1:03.6 | Largest announcement like whatever or ever? |
| 1:06.5 | And that is for a $10 billion private investment that would give Meridian a piece of the country's |
| 1:13.0 | tech future. |
| 1:14.0 | All this stretch of land is about 300 acres and it's going to be a data center campus. |
| 1:19.0 | Data centers. |
| 1:20.4 | These are those big computer-packed buildings, which are the backbone of the internet and the |
| 1:25.1 | AI boom. |
... |
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