The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
Today, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center construction. She attended a protest there organized by a group called Humans First, a conservative grassroots movement focused on combating AI data center build-outs.
Get smart on it
Data center construction is facing bipartisan opposition in communities across the country, with groups organizing protests and pushing for moratoriums on new builds. People opposing data centers cite localized concerns ranging from water contamination and groundwater protection to the environmental strain of cooling facilities in unsuitable climates. The backlash extends beyond environmental and infrastructure concerns to opposition against the AI technology that data centers power, including dissatisfaction with generative AI products and worries about how the technology affects communities. This issue is scrambling traditional political alignments, with conservative voters joining protests over concerns typically associated with left-leaning causes, suggesting data centers have become a physical focus for broader public anxiety about AI development and its societal impacts.
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