Data centers are everywhere now. Or about to be. AI companies are gobbling up electricity and water at a pace that feels almost desperate. The result? A serious backlash.
Americans don’t want this in their neighborhoods. According to a new Gallup poll, 71% oppose new data center construction locally. Nearly half feel strongly opposed. Why? The concerns are grounded and heavy. Water shortages. Noise. Air pollution. The sheer drain on energy resources. Communities are protesting. Some are calling for moratoriums. Bans, even.
Gallup’s first survey on this topic paints a clear picture. Environmental impact leads the charge. Then comes quality-of-life degradation. Fear of strained utilities. Pollution. And just plain old mistrust of AI itself.
Compare that to nuclear power plants. Locals actually hate those less. Only 53% oppose new nuclear construction. Interesting.
The few people who do support local data centers cite economic perks. Jobs. Tax revenue. Access to the latest tech.
The Race for Space
It is a mad dash out there. The big players—OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta—are fighting for control. Nvidia feeds them high-performance chips that heat up rooms fast.
The competition has gotten surreal. Seriously surreal. There is talk of building server farms in space. At sea. In your backyard. Elon Musk proposed orbiting data centers via SpaceX. Anthropic signed a deal with SpaceX to pursue that exact idea. Rumors say Google is looking too.
It is all driven by hunger. Appetites for apps. Streaming TV. But mostly LLMs. ChatGPT. Claude. Those large language models eat processing power like it goes out of style.
So companies build bigger. Much bigger. Look at Utah. The proposed Stratos Project is staggering. It would cover twice the size of Manhattan. It requires more electricity than the entire state currently consumes. Kevin O’Leary backs it. He claims 10,000 new jobs. He claimed protesters were bused in. Residents didn’t buy it.
Or look at Georgia. Politico reported a data center used 30 million gallons of free water. Free. Without initially paying a cent.
Hollow Promises
“64% express doubt that AI will create gains benefiting everyone.” — YouGov
Americans are skeptical. Another poll found 71% think AI is moving too fast. A majority doubts the economic promise.
A Brookings Institution report confirms the skepticism. Local governments overestimate the jobs. AI companies exaggerate them too. Data centers aren’t factories. They are warehouses for expensive chips. Most construction jobs vanish once the buildout ends.
Critics are asking for more. Not just speed. Efficiency. Real research on long-term health effects. Economic impact studies. They want infrastructure proposals to account for the environmental footprint.
The tech moves forward regardless. But the people living in the shadows of these towers aren’t buying the pitch.
Not entirely.
Does the progress of an app really cost your community’s water supply?
Nobody has the answer yet. But the question lingers. Heavy. Real.
