The data center backlash is reshaping American politics — one community at a time
With striking speed, the widespread debate around data centers has become a fault line in American communities, cutting across political parties, splitting constituencies and forging unexpected alliances.
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In city halls and county commission chambers, east to west and north to south, people are squaring off against their local representatives.
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It starts with distrust
Data centers have "upended politics as we know it," says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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It's more than a not-in-my-backyard issue, he says — it also reflects existential fears that artificial intelligence will take jobs or eliminate humanity entirely.
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intelligence → say → humanity
"People just feel like they no longer have control over the technology, [and] that worries them," West says.
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For this story, NPR traveled to data center hot spots and spoke to dozens of activists, politicians, developers and everyday Americans.
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The picture that emerges is complicated.
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Data centers have been an economic boon for some communities, helping to lower land taxes and providing jobs.
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At the same time, the proliferation of secretive deals that often involve elected officials signing nondisclosure agreements has exacerbated suspicions.
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A recent poll by The Economist and YouGov of nearly 1,600 adults found that about two-thirds of Americans oppose new data center construction in their communities.
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A rare cocktail of concerns has fueled the opposition, according to Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University.
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"It's aligning interests in ways that aren't traditional," he says.
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"If you're in power right now and you are dealing with this issue, you have a target on your back."
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Elected officials have had to scramble to recalibrate.
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"It's a recognition that the ground shifted under their feet and they were not ready for that to happen," Borick says.
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Parties are divided
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In Loudoun County, Va., data centers are driving a wedge between fellow Democrats.
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On one side is Juli Briskman, a member of Loudoun County's Board of Supervisors, who has led efforts to slow further data center development.
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On the other is Phyllis Randall, also a Democrat and the board's chair, who has argued in favor of data centers for the tax revenue they bring into the county, even while acknowledging they are "a double-edged sword" for nearby residents.
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Briskman is running to unseat Randall in next year's primary.
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She says her opposition to data centers dates back to 2020, when the board was seeing land-use cases seeking to convert residential and flex-industrial properties into the centers.
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"I feel like I have been singing this song for a while, and now all of a sudden everyone's grabbing my music and singing along with me," Briskman says.
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Randall did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
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Briskman is tapping into a sentiment in her area.
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Kasey Hatch lives near Loudoun County's Vantage VA2 data center, which is powered by eight natural-gas-fired turbines.
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Residents say the turbines produce a constant low-pitched rumble along with a high-frequency whine that has become a major source of noise complaints in the surrounding neighborhoods.
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Hatch, an IT infrastructure engineer for a bank who uses AI in her job, says she and her staunchly Republican cousin "never saw eye to eye on politics."
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But to her surprise, the last time they met, they were "on the same page about everything" when it came to data centers.
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At the grassroots level, that translates into Democrats and Republicans working together on an issue of mutual interest.
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Nusheen Farahani also lives near VA2 and is part of a group of women organized against the facility who regularly show up at public hearings.
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"I'm a liberal and I'm a Democrat, and the people that are in our little team … not all of them are liberals or Democrats," Farahani says.
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A similar story is playing out in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Indiana, to name just a few, where locally organized groups are uniting against data centers — and elected officials.
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According to the Data Center Opposition Report, which tracks grassroots nonprofits on the issue, some 640,000 people are active in the anti-data center movement and 220 new groups sprang up in just the three months from June through August.
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They are driven by a feeling that government is part of the problem, according to Ben Green, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information.
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With that comes a real sense of abandonment, he says.
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"If the policymakers, if my city council or zoning board or township board and governor, if they're on the side of the companies, who's standing up for me?"
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The economic impact
Data centers have been around for a lot longer than the recent AI hype, quietly humming along in the background of the modern internet, powering cloud computing and storing vast amounts of data.
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AOL set up in Loudoun County, for example, back in the 1990s, giving the tech industry an early beachhead in the county that has only grown due to demand from government agencies in nearby Washington, D.C.
To be sure, these facilities have brought economic benefits to the counties where they are located by creating billions of dollars in private investment, construction jobs and a limited number of well-paying positions at the data centers themselves, all the while providing an infusion of tax dollars that have stabilized and even lowered the tax burden for ordinary property owners.
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And among the many people NPR spoke to for this story who oppose data centers, nearly all acknowledge using AI in their daily life.
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Farahani, for example, says she "begrudgingly" uses chatbots for certain tasks "to make things easier.
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…and 48 more, not listed.
The Aporia
