As Trump promotes data centres, communities push back

As President Donald Trump aims the might of the US government at boosting data centre development, communities in the crosshairs are organizing to have control over its local impact.

Trump unveiled an AI strategy last month aimed at achieving US dominance by cutting regulation, speeding up permitting and making land available for proposed data centres and infrastructure.

The strategy followed his executive order naming AI as key to national security and the announcement of a $500 billion private investment plan dubbed “Project Stargate” to boost AI development across the country.

Data centres provide the engine, brain and memory for AI and cloud computing tools, used to power applications from children's toys to office efficiency systems and military analysis.

Local communities are responding with concerns over data centre development that crowds already populated areas, contributing to congestion, traffic, noise and light pollution, water availability and higher energy costs.

They are becoming increasingly organised and building an expanding national network linking areas facing similar development issues.

More than 140 activist groups in 24 states are working to block data center development, with local opposition having halted or delayed projects worth $64 billion in the past two years, according to tracking from Data Center Watch, a research group.

The government's new strategy puts data centres on a par with military installations in terms of regulatory preferential treatment, said Morgan Butler, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Local governments can use zoning and land-use authority to approve or disapprove data center development, but the new government strategy will deprive them of information needed to make their decisions, he said.

The strategy "threatens to discourage states and localities from adopting strong ordinances to help limit the development of data centers," he said.

Residents are left without the information they need to fight back, he said.

"It becomes harder to convince your local government to make the right decision if you don’t have the right information on the table."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

'HYPER-LOCAL FOCUS'

The United States already hosts nearly half of the world’s data centres -- about 5,400 -- due to a massive build-up in recent years.

Data centers are being built by big consumer brands including Amazon, Google and Meta as well as lesser-known developers such as QTS, and the US Department of the Interior Department has been seeking public lands for potential development.

Many localities have jumped at the chance to host such development, eyeing job creation and economic growth.

The data-centre industry contributed 4.7 million jobs and $727 billion to the gross domestic product in 2023, according to a February report from the Data Center Coalition, an industry group.

Other communities have not been so enthusiastic.

Their concerns range from traffic and pollution to water usage and rising energy rates, said Ben Inskeep, program director with Citizens Action Coalition, an Indiana utility watchdog group.

“One of the things locals are finding frustrating is how [developers] operate through secrecy, waiting until the last second to notify that construction of a data center is under development,” he said.

That has led communities to search out others that have gone through similar experiences, he said.

His coalition is tracking 40 data center proposals in the state of Indiana, where six have been withdrawn based on local objections, Inskeep said.

Wendy Reigel, who lives in Chesterton in northern Indiana, last year led an effort to halt development of a large data center on a former golf course in her 500-home neighborhood.

“You never think a commercial golf course would become heavy industry,” she said.

The developer withdrew its application but moved on to try other nearby communities, each of which also fought back, she said.

The key is having a “hyper-local” focus, she said.

“The big goal is to come to the meetings. Email your perspective, get out and put out yard signs, and talk to neighbors and the people that will be making this decision.”

NEW TOOLS

Legal and legislative changes are also underway to provide new tools to address local concerns.

In June, the state of Oregon made data centres a separate power user category, based on concerns that the cost of the massive new electricity demands by such operations would be borne by residents.

Previously, such costs were “spread like peanut butter” among all users, a strategy that made sense when power needs rose roughly at pace with one another, said Bob Jenks, executive director of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board.

While demand from residential customers in Oregon has risen by 3.5 percent since 2016, demand from industrial customers, including data centers, rose by 95 percent in just the past five years.

Electricity rates in the state have risen by about 50% in the past five years, and last year a record number of residential customers were disconnected for nonpayment, Jenks said.

The Oregon law is sparking similar bills in Pennsylvania and other states.

In Virginia, home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world, residents are keeping an eye on further development, said Vida Carroll, who lives in rural Prince William County.

“There are communities all over the country going through similar case studies of what Virginia is going through,” she said.

Actions by residents in northern Virginia have swayed elections, prompting some proposed data center operations to shrink in scale, she said.

In August they scored a legal victory over a proposed 2,100-acre data center complex, where construction of its transmission line and the prospect of higher electricity rates have concerned residents for years, she said.

“Have we been able to solve this problem? No," Carroll said. "But I'm optimistic about the change citizens have been able to have."