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Silicon Valley and Washington sees data centers as the backbone of America\u2019s AI future. Residents who live next to them see giant, humming boxes that throw diesel exhaust into the air, drive up energy costs, and steamroll the look and feel of their neighborhoods\u2014\u201ca plague,\u201d as Virginian anti-data center activist Elena Schlossberg put it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you live near a data center that\u2019s being powered by these gas turbines, you simply cannot imagine living there,\u201d she said. You can \u201chear the noise\u201d in your home, added Schlossberg\u2014who got into the fight a decade ago while trying, unsuccessfully, to stop Facebook from putting a data center next to her property.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Virginia has long been the biggest data center hub of not just the country but the world, with northern Virginia alone hosting 13% of the globe\u2019s data centers in 2023, according to a government report. And for just as long, residents have been locked into battles over what that footprint means for their communities.<\/p>\n
Now, Schlossberg is leading a Virginia nonprofit group, Save Prince William County, to fight against the encroachment of even more data centers to power the AI boom. Data center power demand is expected to rise five-fold over the next decade, Deloitteprojects; reaching 176 gigawatts, the same amount as Australia and the United Kingdom\u2019s entire power grids combined.<\/p>\n
AI infrastructure builders, and the tech giants that plan to rely on the future data centers, argue that they\u2019re essential to unlocking AI\u2019s economic benefits. But in some of the states slated to house these projects, many of them politically purple-ish or even red\u2014Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania\u2014voters are revolting, often successfully keeping them out of their neighborhoods. Indeed, in elections held last month, opposition to data centers helped tip elections in Democrats\u2019 favor in Virginia and Republican-leaning Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolks realize they\u2019re getting duped,\u201d said Kerwin Olson, executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition, an environmental advocacy coalition based in Indiana. \u201cIt\u2019s not just something they hear on Fox News or MSNBC anymore. It\u2019s happening in their own backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big Tech companies, Olson added, are showing up at local planning commissions and drainage boards asking for \u201chuge giveaways\u201d\u2014 tax abatements, zoning variances, special exceptions \u2014\u201dall to build a $3 billion box that creates maybe 30 jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they\u2019re like, what\u2019s in it for us?\u201d Olson asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first signs of what could be a broader political reckoning are appearing at the county level. In Prince William County\u2014home to the fight over a proposed 2,000-acre \u201cDigital Gateway\u201d development near the Manassas battlefield\u2014data centers have already forced recalls, resignations, and primary defeats of elected officials, Schlossberg said. The issue has become so radioactive that candidates in both parties now treat opposition to data-center expansion as a prerequisite for running, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never been red versus blue,\u201d Schlossberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s people who live here versus people who want to industrialize where we live.\u201d<\/p>\n
That county could be a canary in the coalmine for what comes next, as Democrats and Republicans approach critical midterm congressional elections in 2026. Across key swing states, activists say the next wave of AI-driven projects will collide with a public that is far more organized and hostile than it was even two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That tension is beginning to creep into politics. In Indiana, legislators publicly tout the state\u2019s new data-center incentives while privately warning counties that the projects are not without tradeoffs. In Virginia, candidates now get asked\u2014at libraries, at farmer\u2019s markets, even at high school football games\u2014whether they would support a temporary moratorium.<\/p>\n
Olson said his group has been \u201cburied\u201d in calls from Hoosiers in every corner of the state\u2014red, blue, rural, suburban\u2014asking for help deciphering tax abatements and utility filings. \u201cI\u2019ve worked on energy issues for decades,\u201d he said. \u201cI have never seen anything like the scale of anger over this.\u201d<\/p>\n
When voters see those consequences firsthand, Olson said, they stop caring about geopolitical talking points. \u201cYou can tell people this is about beating China,\u201d he said. But when their bill goes up, and their kids are sleeping in basements with headphones on because of the noise, they\u2019re not thinking about China.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the heart of the backlash is a basic economic question that data-center backers haven\u2019t convincingly answered: Why should the public subsidize infrastructure that serves some of the world\u2019s richest companies?<\/p>\n
Indiana\u2019s first filing under its new \u201c80\/20\u201d law\u2014touted as a safeguard to make data centers pay most of the costs\u2014still leaves ratepayers actually footing nearly 40% of the bill, Olson said. The organization he runs, Citizens Action Coalition, did an analysis that revealed that Hoosier households paid 17.5% more in utility bills in 2025 than the previous year. In Virginia, residents fear they will ultimately finance the transmission lines and new generation needed to serve hyperscale facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public utility model was always a social contract,\u201d Schlossberg said. \u201cThe data-center industry blew that up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In many ways, the backlash boils down to a trust problem. Residents don\u2019t trust Big Tech, seeing the hyperscalers as being like \u201crobber barons at the turn of the century\u201d but with unprecedented demands for land, water, and power. Olson pointed to NDAs, closed-door negotiations, and local officials dining with tech consultants as signs that decisions are being made over communities\u2019 heads and without local voters\u2019 input. Layered onto that is a broader skepticism of AI itself: Many voters aren\u2019t convinced they should remake their towns for what still feels like an unproven or overhyped technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like the Gilded Age, part two,\u201d Olson said. \u201cOnly bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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