Everyone can find a reason to dislike data center construction
Inside two years of fraught AI data center debates in Pennsylvania.
Get smart on it
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.
Related news
Data Center Water Use: From Efficiency Metrics to Real-World Resilience
Water has shifted from a background utility to a core constraint for data centers, requiring site-specific resilience planning that addresses peak stress, local hydrology, and community impact, not just average efficiency metrics.
Data centers are black boxes, but California wants to change that
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of bills on Monday that could finally give communities better data - and more say - on how data centers impact their electricity bills and water supply. As data centers invade a growing number of communities across the US, they've triggered protests over how the infrastructure underpinning AI might stress power grids and local water systems. That's fueled partly by concerns about how difficult it is to see just how much electricity o
