The data center backlash is reshaping American politics — one community at a time

With striking speed, the widespread debate around data centers has become a fault line in American communities, cutting across political parties, splitting constituencies and forging unexpected alliances.

In city halls and county commission chambers, east to west and north to south, people are squaring off against their local representatives.

Data centers have "upended politics as we know it," says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. It's more than a not-in-my-backyard issue, he says — it also reflects existential fears that artificial intelligence will take jobs or eliminate humanity entirely.

"People just feel like they no longer have control over the technology, [and] that worries them," West says. "This is a real grassroots movement. It's ordinary people all across the country, both Republicans and Democrats."

For this story, NPR traveled to data center hot spots and spoke to dozens of activists, politicians, developers and everyday Americans.

The picture that emerges is complicated. Data centers have been an economic boon for some communities, helping to lower land taxes and providing jobs. At the same time, the proliferation of secretive deals that often involve elected officials signing nondisclosure agreements has exacerbated suspicions.

The Vantage VA2 data center sits next to residential buildings in Sterling, Virginia. The center is powered by gas turbines, which create noise. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

A recent poll by The Economist and YouGov of nearly 1,600 adults found that about two-thirds of Americans oppose new data center construction in their communities. A rare cocktail of concerns has fueled the opposition, according to Chris Borick, a political science professor at Lehigh University.