Dem
47
GOP
53
This will not be the year of the data center. Or maybe it will be, in a perverse sense. Millions of people are worried about what AI could do to their jobs and even more are worried about what it could do to their electricity and water bills. It is becoming a hot political issue.
Ground zero is Maine. There, the state legislature has passed a bill banning the construction of large new data centers anywhere in the state. Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) seems inclined to sign something like it, although she may insist on some minor changes. If she signs this or a related bill, Maine would be the first state to ban new data centers. Given how much voters dislike them, it probably won't be the last one.
Another state where data centers are in trouble is Virginia. There is a vast collection of Internet-related switching centers and data centers in Northern Virginia,and many people do not want the ones already there and certainly not any more. Amazon has built some within 50' of people's houses. If a company is trying to drum up opposition to its infrastructure, that is a good way to do it. A new WaPo/Schar School poll asking if people would be comfortable with a new data center in their community shows that only 35% would, while 59% would not. People see them as a scourge on the environment and a threat to electricity and water bills. In response to public outcries about data centers, Prince William County has abandoned plans to allow a 1700-acre data center park on the edge of the Manassas National Battlefield Park. It would have hosted 37 data centers. The board of supervisors had previously supported the data centers, but public outcry has made them change sides.
Viriginians now consider a data center in their community about as welcome as a nuclear reactor. A recent nationwide poll from the Marquette Law School shows that 62% of Americans say the costs of data centers outweigh their benefits.
Up until now, counties and cities have actually tried to lure data centers with tax breaks. That is changing. Now voters are against giving data centers any tax breaks at all. They employ almost no one, are ugly, and consume vast amounts of electricity and water, so why should any city or county try to lure them? They have virtually nothing to offer the locality that hosts them. We are probably not that far from reversing the situation, where cities and counties not only do not subsidize them, but put extra taxes on them to discourage their construction (or, at least, provide a reliable source of income if they do).
A group called Data Center Watch has reported that at least 25 projects were blocked or delayed around the country in 2025. There were also 238 state legislative proposals to create new rules for data centers last year. Of these, 40 passed.
To some extent, this reaction is the tech industry's own fault. It apparently didn't occur to anyone that nobody wants an ugly building with a million whirring machines consuming tens of megawatts of power next door. At the very least, tech companies should plan data centers for isolated rural areas where there is not much impact, plant trees and other camouflage around them, provide their own power sources, and pay communities for the inconvenience of being there. (V)