Johns Hopkins University is planning its very own Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Institute (DSAI) on its Homewood Campus in Wyman Park despite some community opposition. Organizers with Bmore Against DSAI and area residents are voicing their concerns about the potential cost to the environment and community.
University spokesperson Doug Donovan said in an email to The Greyhound, that construction will require the removal of 72 trees located on JHU property. An additional 30 trees in the public right of way along Wyman Park Drive will be removed, including 9 trees on Remington Avenue. Those trees will be removed to allow for required stormwater mitigation, to implement the Baltimore Greenway, and to allow for construction access.
“Johns Hopkins is committed to being a good neighbor as it develops the DSAI institute, a project that will generate nearly $2 billion in economic activity and nearly 11,000 jobs in the Baltimore region,” Donovan said.
Some Remington residents are worried about the construction process and removal of trees that could have a trickle-down effect on wildlife.
Hilary Gonzalez, a poet and anti-DSAI center activist, posted a TikTok video explaining why she is concerned about the institute. She lives on one of the streets that are going to be most impacted by DSAI’s construction and said that neighbors first learned of the project in 2023 via flyers delivered to their doorsteps by JHU. In response, they then organized meetings that would allow questions and concerns to be voiced.
But those community meetings that Gonzalez mentioned did not last long. Hopkins told The Greyhound they hosted 14 community meetings over the past two years. But Gonzalez said the night that the community was scheduled to vote on approving or disapproving the building, Hopkins told them they were no longer going to have a vote and that they were moving forward with the project, using the As-of-Right scheme and withdrawing their request for extra height.
The As-of-Right scheme, specifically in zoning, is a property owner or builder’s legal ability to develop, use, or build on their property without obtaining special permission from anyone.
Now, the Wyman Park South community, Gonzalez, and Bmore Against DSAI have taken it upon themselves to host community meetings.
“Every single update since that has come out about the Hopkins stuff has been from B’more Against DSAI, so myself and other community members that are helping,” Gonzalez said.
According to the Johns Hopkins HUB website, the institute will focus on research and education in data science and artificial intelligence across diverse field. Mark Dredze, a pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence for language analysis, was named as director.
Yet University spokesperson Doug Donovan did not confirm or deny the use of GPU’s in the new institute.
“These are academic buildings with classrooms, offices and labs–not a data center–and they will not use more electricity that standard academic buildings.”
Climate Scientist and Loyola Physics Professor Charlotte Connolly says AI data centers train AI models like Chat GPT and Sora.
Connolly elaborates that in the process of training these AI models the GPU system can get very hot. This intense heat is where cooling systems come into play.
“The big thing with AI is that it requires a lot of power to train them, and you need a lot of data to train them… Those are often done on a system called a GPU, graphical processing unit, computer hardware,” Connolly said.
There are, however, a slate of new AI center proposals in the state of Maryland. The Baltimore Banner reports Scott Plank’s War Horse Cities Firm is considering building AI data centers in Maryland. Additionally, there are talks of renovating the Landover Mall in Prince George’s County into a data center, and a $1.2 billion project in Frederick County is already in the works.
According to a study conducted by the climate lead of AI company Hugging Face, generating one image with AI uses as much energy as charging your phone halfway. In a study done by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, researchers found that AI data centers use about 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a day, roughly the same as the daily water demand for a town of up to 50,000 people, as broken down by the Associated Press.
Connolly says the environmental impact of the new DSAI institute is almost entirely dependent on how many GPUs the university plans to have.
“If they have one GPU, the impact might be minimal. If they have 100 GPUs, that starts getting to be like, where is the electricity coming from, are they going to tap into the Baltimore grid, can the Baltimore grid handle that? Then those questions start to be super important,” Connolly said.
Connolly stressed the importance of protest for those against the institute’s construction.
“I think the big thing is to not take it lying down. Contact people in power and keep pushing back and trying to get it so that they make changes,” Connolly said.
According to the Baltimore Banner, 20,000 Prince George’s county residents formed and signed a petition to stop the process of developing and building five AI data centers within 87 acres of land. The petition worked, as the county council paused all data center permits and developments until an impact study could be conducted and completed.
“You know, if we want the benefits of AI then we also have to think about the benefits of our land, and our mental health, and our communities and all of that,” Connolly said.
Gonzalez has created a petition for community members to sign.
“There is also a Change.org petition that I created that is now up to almost 1,900 people have signed that we are presenting again to the Baltimore City mayor’s office. It was presented at 1500, and now we are going to present it again at 1,900 to say, ‘Hey, can we get an answer please,’” Gonzalez said.
Visit Bmore Against DSAI to find contact information for Maryland and Baltimore elected officials along with both phone and email scripts for contacting them.