Everyone can find a reason to dislike data center construction
Inside two years of fraught AI data center debates in Pennsylvania.
AI companies are spending trillions of dollars on data center construction to scale up artificial intelligence, but surveys show more than 60% of Americans oppose new data centers in their communities. A nonprofit research organization conducted 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and found that opposition comes from diverse groups with different concerns, including people worried about power bills and property values, environmental groups concerned about water and energy usage, those skeptical of AI technology itself, and communities with historical experience of industrial disruption. The research reveals that the industry's messaging that AI is inevitable has resonated poorly, particularly in areas with legacies of industrial change, and that material interests and trust issues are central to why people oppose these projects rather than any single factor that the industry can easily address.
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