Data Center Backlash Puts Trillions in AI Projects at Risk
More than 60% of Americans favor limits on new data centers as Pennsylvania resistance threatens AI investment, household costs and public trust nationwide.
Summary
By September 22, 2026, frontier AI labs had planned trillions of dollars in data centers, betting more compute will improve AI, even as more than 60% of Americans favored limiting new facilities, especially nearby. Long-running surveys show opposition rising quickly, and Data Center Watch counted $68 billion in projects disrupted by local resistance in the second quarter of 2026. Claims that secret Chinese meddling drives the backlash do not explain its breadth.
Data & Society’s report draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with 44 Pennsylvanians from 2024 to 2026. Researchers Livia Garofalo and Maia Woluchem examined residents’ experiences rather than measuring data centers’ empirical effects. They found AI inevitability pitches colliding with distrust rooted in Pennsylvania’s coal, early oil, steel and fracking history. Governor Josh Shapiro promoted $90 billion in data center and AI investment at a July 2025 summit, then signed an order imposing new requirements and removing projects from regulatory fast-track treatment a year later.
Trade unions remain the strongest supporters because construction could rebuild membership, although completed facilities provide few jobs. Post-partisan opposition includes development skeptics, AI critics, environmentalists and residents worried about water, emissions, health, electricity bills and property values. Nondisclosure agreements, uncommunicative officials and appearances by Amazon, Meta and Microsoft representatives at local meetings deepen distrust. The Data Center Coalition created Pennsylvania Connects and spent at least $19,000 lobbying the state last year. Garofalo said trust also erodes when intimate chatbot interactions feel caring while remaining extractive commodities.
Positives
- $90 billion in data center and AI investment promoted by Josh Shapiro in July 2025 could expand Pennsylvania’s technology infrastructure.
- Trade unions see data center construction as a source of jobs and an opportunity to rebuild membership.
- Josh Shapiro’s 2026 order added project requirements and removed data centers from regulatory fast-track treatment.
- 44 Pennsylvania interviews over 18 months provide detailed evidence about how communities experience proposed developments.
- Post-partisan organizing is bringing residents with different political and economic concerns into shared local debates.
Risks & concerns
- More than 60% of Americans favor limiting new data centers, particularly near their communities.
- $68 billion in data center projects were disrupted by local opposition during the second quarter of 2026.
- Completed data centers provide relatively few permanent jobs despite unions’ support for their construction.
- Residents fear higher electricity bills, falling property values, heavy water use, emissions and possible health effects.
- Nondisclosure agreements and reduced access to local officials are intensifying distrust of developers and technology companies.
- Trillions of dollars in planned AI infrastructure face a fragmented opposition with no single concern or remedy.