New Mexico is known for its art.

Data centers designed to train and deploy artificial intelligence are antithetical to that famed reputation, said Otis Caserta, a sophomore at New Mexico School for the Arts.

“We are artists as a state and also artists in a desert,” he said. “And we are sitting here watching this government blindly build a data center we don’t need that will suck up all of the water that we need to drink and survive.”

Caserta was one of about 200 NMSA students who walked out of class Tuesday and marched to the state Capitol to protest Project Jupiter, the massive data center being built in Doña Ana County. The students clutched signs — one read “every bad sci-fi movie starts like this,” another read “you can’t drink data” — and chanted all the way to the Governor’s Office.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was not there, staff told the students, but they were welcome to write letters to her. So 50 at a time — some in zombie makeup amid a lively school spirit week — poured into the office and sat on the floor with sheets of paper and pencils.

The undead getups were a coincidence, said Phoebe Salazar, a junior who had fake blood pouring from her face. Tuesday was “Plants vs. Zombies Day.”

“But I think there could be some sort of tie to this for sure,” Salazar added.

In an email to The New Mexican, Governor’s Office spokesperson Michael Coleman wrote Lujan Grisham received the students’ letters and plans to read and consider them. The governor hopes the students stay informed and continue to participate in the political process, Coleman wrote.

“Governor Lujan Grisham understands that young New Mexicans are frustrated with the American political system, and she shares their concerns about some of the issues raised during today’s protest,” he wrote. “The governor respects anyone’s right to assemble and protest peacefully, but she also believes it’s important to respect public property and spaces and not interfere with government employees who are simply doing their jobs.”

Several students spoke to the age gap between themselves and many politicians — something they said makes it easier for those in power to skirt responsibility.

“You, the adults, the ones supposed to be fighting for us — you may get the privilege of dying of old age, but our children will die from climate change,” Isabelle Taylor-Ault, a junior, shouted toward Lujan Grisham’s office. “You are elected by the people, for the people, and the people say stop.”

Taylor-Ault was one of several organizers of the walkout, spreading the word on social media and catching the eye of statewide environmental groups. Volunteers walked with the students and helped block the street; they followed as the group walked downstairs and into a meeting of the state Legislature’s Water and Natural Resources Committee, where they continued to chant before they marched back to school.

About a dozen New Mexico State Police cars remained parked outside of the Roundhouse at about 1:30 p.m. as the students left.

The Santa Fe Police Department’s bike sergeant was present and checked in with an organizer, interim police Chief Ben Valdez wrote in a text message.

NMSA Head of School Eric Crites said in a statement he received comments from Santa Fe police that students behaved respectfully during the walkout. Though the action was entirely student-organized and not sponsored by NMSA, the school “encourages our students to find their own voices and participate in society in peaceful and respectful way,” Crites said.

The school’s attendance policy allows for one excused absence per school year for civic engagement, though parents or guardians must notify the attendance office to excuse their students under that policy. Those who left the school Tuesday without parental permission were marked unexcused, Crites said.

A statewide affair

The walkout was one of a few that took place Tuesday across New Mexico.

A parallel event in Las Cruces was more muted. No students attended, but over a dozen protesters held signs and tote bags with phrases like “AI data centers fuera del desierto” and “Water for life. Not for data,” with an X over the Oracle logo — the main developer behind Project Jupiter.

Tuesday morning’s event at the Plaza de Las Cruces came at the heels of a statewide convening in Las Cruces this weekend, where advocacy groups strategized how to campaign for bans on such projects ahead of January’s legislative session.

Lennie Maldonado, a local advocate, at Tuesday’s protest criticized Doña Ana County commissioners’ lack of transparency about Project Jupiter. Maldonado mentioned the commissioners were again convening in closed session Tuesday morning to discuss the project’s industrial revenue bonds.

When commissioners initially approved the $165 billion in bonds, they did so in closed session, prompting lawsuits over an alleged Open Meetings Act violation.

“I want us all to encourage our county commissioners to hold public meetings before they have their vote, because we can remember last year, that was the biggest issue,” Maldonado said Tuesday. “They said, ‘We’re going to vote this day,’ and they were going to give the community zero time to give input or feedback … and then they obviously ended up voting yes.”

Esperanza Chairez, policy manager at Youth United for Climate Crisis Action, expressed disappointment in her remarks Tuesday that an environmental advocacy group’s attempt to halt progress on the data center’s state air quality permit hit a roadblock Monday. The permit’s public hearing will take place the week of Dec. 7 in Sunland Park.

Chairez thanked the students organizing in Northern New Mexico in solidarity with Southern New Mexico.

“As we know, Project Jupiter is within five miles of a high school, of an elementary school, of a middle school, of daycares,” Chairez said. “So young people are going to certainly be impacted if they are to successfully build their … gas-powered plant using fuel cell technology.”

In Albuquerque, University of New Mexico students marched from campus to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office. Members of the student organization UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight sent a letter to university administration expressing concern about UNM’s “growing investment in and institutional embrace of artificial intelligence.”

Many at Santa Fe’s walkout also criticized the use of AI more broadly.

While AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, are often linked to Generation Z — particularly around academics — NMSA junior Emilio Madrid described the technology as “stupid.”

“The way that we use AI is not really helping us, as a society, improve at all,” Madrid said.

Salazar added: “I think I would throw up, honestly, if I ever touched ChatGPT.”

Lily Alexander is a state accountability reporter for The New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico, focusing on equity and transparency. Her position is part of the New Mexican Public Service Journalism Fund, and her stories are available to all readers without a paywall. Julia Gentin is a reporter for The Las Cruces New Mexican, The Santa Fe New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.

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