Nicol Turner Lee and Darrell M. West examine how data center backlash is reshaping the 2026 midterms and AI's future.
2025 Global Data Center Outlook
The data center sector will continue to grow at a phenomenal pace in 2025.
AI Data Centers: Big Tech's Impact on Electric Bills, Water, and More via @ConsumerReports
Massive data centers are gobbling up resources across the United States. The boom has just begun—and you may be paying for it.
How AI Data Centers Became a Central Issue in Today’s Midterm Election
Server farms for AI have become a uniting issue for voters and a bipartisan headache for candidates.
Dave Troy on Twitter / X
Fears over datacenters are distorted along a few important axes:1) anxiety over AI, future employment, and control; they symbolize what people fear they are losing,2) compute centralization, which is actually probably not going to actually occur, because of financial…— Dave Troy (@davetroy) August 21, 2026
AI Is A Money Trap
In the last week, we’ve had no less than three different pieces asking whether the massive proliferation of data centers is a massive bubble, and though they, at times, seem to take the default position of AI’s inevitable value, they’ve begun to sour on the idea that
US views of how data centers affect the environment, energy costs, jobs and more
A broad majority of Americans have heard about data centers – the often-sprawling computing facilities that are popping up nationwide. But the public has mixed opinions about data centers’ impact…
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
I think the data center backlash is mostly about data centers
It’s probably not your ideological thing, or mine. It’s about object-level claims about how data centers impact the communities where they’re built, many of which are wrong.
Is the Left Making a ‘Massive Strategic Blunder’ on Data Centers?
A conversation with Holly Jean Buck, author of a buzzy story about Bernie Sanders’ proposal for a national data center moratorium.
Data centers are facing an image problem. The tech industry is spending millions to rebrand them.
Through television ads and online campaigns, industry-backed groups are promising jobs, clean energy, and lower electricity bills.
Data Center Proposal Tracker
Explore data center proposals across the United States. Stay informed on AI-driven growth and infrastructure projects shaping the future.
Data Center Proposal Tracker
Explore data center proposals across the United States. Stay informed on AI-driven growth and infrastructure projects shaping the future.
‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers
Americans have soured on data centers, polls show, and the sentiment is profoundly bipartisan. How will that change our politics?
The Race to Rethink Data Centers for AI’s Power Surge
With energy demand already straining infrastructure, AI players are reimagining the data center from the ground up.
With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial.
The backlash against data centers is difficult to understand if your salary depends on your not understanding it.
Data centers have a political problem — and Big Tech wants to fix it
A growth engine for the economy is becoming a political albatross. Can messaging change that?
