Anti-Data-Center Fever Sweeps America, Stalling Construction

In a new commercial for Garage Beer and canned water brand Liquid Death, former NFL-er Jason Kelce finds an apt visual metaphor for America’s growing frustration with sprawling AI infrastructure. (All we’ll say is that it involves a well-known side effect of beer consumption, so consider yourself warned if you decide to Google it.)

The massive data center buildout has emerged as a salient political issue ahead of this year’s midterm elections, flagged by both sides of the aisle. Last week, a survey published by Pew Research confirmed the zeal of the anti-data-center sentiment, which is now scoring some very real wins against Silicon Valley.

NAIIMBY (No AI In My Backyard)

Anti-data-center crusaders have objected to the energy, water and land demands of the massive server farms. But the Pew survey reveals an even more basic reason for their ire: Americans are worried that AI will take their jobs: Some 71% of survey respondents said they’re worried that AI will lead to fewer jobs in the next 20 years, with younger people even more fearful. In May, Gallup reported that 48% of survey respondents said they strongly oppose the construction of data centers in their local area, while another 23% said they would somewhat oppose it.

It’s been a strong enough pushback to stop some data center projects dead in their tracks, forcing tech giants to go on local-level charm offensives:

• At least 75 data center construction projects worth some $130 billion were either blocked or delayed by local opposition in the first quarter of the year, according to a recent report from AI safety group Data Center Watch. That’s roughly equivalent to all of the projects halted by local opposition last year.
• Meta earlier this month extended a $1 billion olive branch in the form of its “Future Is For Everyone” fund, which will distribute money back into communities near its data centers. OpenAI recently promised $80 million in community funds and $71 million in coding credits to a Georgia community where it hopes to build a data center.

Trade-Off: One group benefiting big time from the buildout: tradespersons. Tech firms are hiring armies of construction workers, electricians, HVAC specialists and more to complete the buildout, and are spending a fortune to train the next generation of trade workers, too. Some 216,000 construction jobs have been born out of the data center buildout since 2022, according to a Goldman Sachs study published in March. As one electrician-in-training set to soon join the data center buildout effort in Detroit recently told The New York Times: “Everybody wants that money.”