AI Advocates Warn the Growing Resistance to Data Centers Threatens America’s Future

Data centers to power the rapid rise of artificial intelligence are facing a powerful backlash, but advocates for the industry warn that the growing efforts to limit or ban the development of new projects could have devastating effects on American dominance and local economies.There are already about 4,000 data centers spread out across the country and the AI industry plans to build nearly another 2,800 to meet future computing demand.A Gallup survey released in March, however, shows seven in 10 Americans are opposed to the construction of data centers in their area. The biggest concerns center around their water and power use. “A political storm of political factors and broader cultural fears has come together to create today’s techno panic over data centers,” an innovation policy analyst at the free-market think tank R Street, Adam Thierer tells The New York Sun. Mr. Thierer says a broad coalition of political constituencies — from environmentalists to trade unions to copyright advocates — are trying to put the brakes on building out AI in America.Mr. Thierer says other groups of critics fear the threat of discrimination by the technology and have safety concerns, believing AI is going to lead to existential risk.Dozens of local governments have paused or banned construction of the large projects because of impact concerns. Some states are doing the same. Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced a bill to enact a national moratorium on new construction of AT data centers until strict federal rules are established.“Our culture surrounding technology in America, but specifically AI and robotics, has been one that has often been laced with a lot of dystopian dread,” Mr. Thierer says. “If you watch major motion pictures or television shows or read major science fiction books about AI or technology, they almost uniformly treat it as a negative, a danger, a threat. And eventually that filters down.”Advocates for building more data centers warn that AI is a national priority. The American Edge Project is a policy advocacy coalition that campaigns for the interests of the American technology center. The group’s chief executive officer, Doug Kelly, says that the country is in a race with China for global AI leadership. “The winner of that race gets a decades-long advantage in national security, economic competitiveness in global leadership, period,” Mr. Kelly told the Sun. “And the way that we win is we are going to win by building the AI infrastructure that America needs.”There are also big financial rewards tied to data centers. A recent PwC report commissioned by the Data Center Coalition found that the data center industry contributed $926.9 billion to America’s economy in 2024, supported 5.5 million jobs, and generated $204.4 billion in tax contributions to federal, state, and local governments.“Every data center comes with years of reliable support for local economies by promoting job creation at restaurants, hotels, car rental agencies, fiber and HVAC installers, steel fabricators, advanced manufacturing facilities, and many other businesses,” the Data Center Coalition’s vice president of state policy, Dan Diorio, said in an emailed statement. “For every 1 job in a data center, 4.5 jobs are supported elsewhere in the economy nationally.”The planned data centers are projected to add another $27 billion in state and local tax revenue over the next 10 years. “That’s a lot of money. That goes to schools. It goes to 1st responders. It goes to all the different local needs that that communities are often struggling with,” Mr. Kelly said. “The tax revenue is going to go elsewhere. The economic growth is going to go elsewhere,” he added. “And states, particularly in this economic climate, should not be hanging a ‘Hey, we’re not open for business’ sign outside their door.”There are states that remain open to creation of data centers. Mr. Kelly cited Texas as a state that is open for business for the industry. “They have a lot of investment capital there. Secondly, they have a very supportive regulatory environment that says, ‘Look, we have a bias towards building. We recognize that building data centers can be controversial in certain areas because of water use or electricity use,’ but they have more of a bias to build these things and work to solve those problems on the front end than most other states do,” Mr. Kelly said.Mr. Thierer says that Mississippi is another state that has been welcoming to data centers. He says Governor Tate Reeves has been outspoken in talking about the benefits of data centers, calling them smart for Mississippi. “Governor Reeves gets it more than your average politician,” Mr. Thierer said.Industry supporters also say that some of the negative aspects of data centers can be mitigated. One example is lessening the amount of water that they use. Some of the newest designs use what is called a closed-loop system. It continuously recirculates a fixed amount of water to absorb the tremendous amount of heat generated by servers and then transfers it outside of the building.Another concern surrounding data centers is the power they consume. Higher electricity bills are blamed on the massive amount of electricity the developments require. The AI industry says it should not be scapegoated for the power industry’s decades of insufficient investment.Mr. Kelly suggests that data centers — long-term, large, predictable customers — give the utilities an incentive to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure to meet those needs.“These are not unsolvable risks. These are very solvable problems because the upside is so large and it’s right there at our fingertips,” Mr. Kelly said. All we have to do is grab it and make it happen.”

AI Advocates Warn the Growing Resistance to Data Centers Threatens America’s Future

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