More than 3,700 furry and feathered residents of the Nashville Zoo are on the verge of getting a new, and unwelcome, neighbor—a data center a little bit bigger than a football field.
In staunchly pro-development Tennessee, the data center plan spearheaded by Atlanta-based DC BLOX is drawing widespread criticism because of its potential size and location. The initial data center facility will span 69,000 square feet with plans for an additional building to be built later on that would span 261,000 square feet—all next to one of the country’s most acclaimed wildlife institutions and conservation hubs.
DC BLOX says the data center is essential to meeting the digital needs of central Tennessee. However, the nonprofit zoo has said it is concerned about how the data center will affect its 350 different species of animals, many of which are a protected species. The zoo, which opened in its current location in 1997, hosts a successful breeding program for the endangered clouded leopard. It also houses rare species like the Amur leopard, of which fewer than 200 remain in the wild.
The zoo is not yet rolling over in the fight against the data center development. A spokesperson told Fortune that its land use attorney has filed a zoning appeal with the city with hopes to overturn the permits filed by the company behind the data center. The zoo is also working with an environmental rights lawyer to see if it can take any legal action regarding the protected species it houses.
A petition the zoo started earlier this month to protest the data center plans has also collected more than 533,700 signatures as of Monday afternoon.
“How are we to know this new data center will not lead to irreversible damage to the animals we exist to protect?” the petition reads.
Stars take sides
The zoo’s fight against the proposed data center has attracted the support of celebrities like country music star Brad Paisley, whose wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, previously served on the board of directors of the Nashville Zoo. A spokesperson for the zoo confirmed she is not currently a board member.
Paisley, a three-time Grammy award winning artist who has lived in Nashville for decades with his wife, urged his fans in a series of videos on social media to oppose the data center project next to the Nashville Zoo.
In a video earlier this month Paisley called the proposed Nashville data center “an enormous monstrosity” and an “absolute eyesore,” and urged his followers to sign the zoo’s petition opposing it.
His efforts led to a surge in signatures and media attention, yet, in a followup video last week, the country singer behind the hit “Whiskey Lullaby,” reminded his fans that the issue with the Nashville data center is “by no means resolved yet.”
In the video last week, Paisley criticized the data center project not just because of the potential effects on the zoo but also because of his opposition to AI. Paisley said in the followup video that AI takes intellectual property without permission and is putting musical artists out of work. The data center proposal, he argued, is being pushed through in a similar way.
“Now they’re trying to build a data center, a monstrosity, next to the zoo kind of in the same way, where they’re not asking for permission and it’s also going to really affect something here in Nashville that’s one of the beloved parts of our town,” Paisley said in the video.
Paisley joins a growing chorus of musical artists who have pushed back against AI and how it affects the livelihoods of creatives. In 2024, more than 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, and Stevie Wonder, signed an open letter condemning what they called the “predatory use of AI” to take musicians’ intellectual property. In February, another 1,000 artists released a silent album to protest the U.K.’s proposed copyright changes that would allow AI companies to train models on artists’ work without a license. The U.K. later backed away from the proposal.
To be sure, a spokesperson for DC BLOX said in a statement to Fortune that the data center being built in Nashville “is designed to function as a digital connectivity hub and not as a large AI factory.” While the spokesperson said the company was aware of Paisley’s social media criticism, they argued data centers like the one being proposed in Nashville actually help artists like Paisley.
“It is this digital infrastructure that enables artists like Mr. Paisley to distribute and stream their music globally, engage with fans on social media, and utilize video platforms to share their voices,” the statement read.
Paisley’s representatives did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Paisley is the most recent celebrity to raise his voice against AI data centers, but he is hardly alone in his opinion. Several other celebrities commented in support of his first post on Instagram, including musicians like Jack White of The White Stripes and country music artist Morgane Stapleton.
Fellow musical artists Sheryl Crow and Brandon Lake also commented on Paisley’s Instagram post saying they would sign the petition.
Others, including actress Jane Fonda have gone further. Last week, the actress, who has advocated for many causes since the 1970s, attended a protest against a data center being built in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.
Paisley in his most recent video called on elected leaders to find a solution. In the meantime, though, he urged Nashville residents to come together to oppose the data center proposal.
“Look, Nashville, we got to fight this. We have to set a precedent, because if we can win this and we can stop that from happening where we don’t want it, it’s a precedent that will help other communities,” Paisley said.
Data centers worldwide consumed a total of 448 terawatt hours of energy last year, more than the entire nation of Saudi Arabia, according to United Nations researchers. That number is expected to double by the end of the decade.
DC BLOX’s chief revenue officer and executive vice president told the New York Times that the zoo is located in an area already designated for industrial use. The property where DC BLOX is set to build once housed a much smaller data center.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Southern Environmental Law Center sent a joint letter to DC BLOX as well as the Nashville city council last week in support of the Nashville Zoo. The environmental organizations raised concerns about the nearby data center’s potential effects, including noise and light pollution that could alter animals’ breeding patterns and potentially heighten their stress responses. The organizations argue the data center’s developer risks running afoul of federal environmental laws with the project.
“DC BLOX would be liable if its activities associated with the proposed data center campus annoy the endangered species nearby and/or harm them through habitat modification or degradation to such an extent that these activities significantly disrupt and/or impair the species’ behavioral patterns,” the letter reads.
It is unclear what will happen as of yet with the proposed data center near the Nashville Zoo.
Last week, a lawyer for DC Blox told members of Nashville’s Metropolitan Planning Commission that, “This building is vested; they are going to build it there. We already have the permits in hand; we just want to work with the community to find a solution.”
The planning commission, for its part, recently recommended Nashville’s city council pass two bills, the first of which establishes zoning rules for data centers, which don’t currently exist. The second bill would institute a moratorium on new data center projects until new rules are in place.
The planning commission will examine both bills during a public hearing on July 7.
