The Problems with Artificial Intelligence Data Centers, At the Forefront Since March

Until recently, most of the articles I have referenced on the value of AI data facilities have been as positive as “Demand for AI Data Centers Sends Prospectors Hunting for Land and Power” (Tripp Mickle, The New York Times, March 5^th).  In this one, we learned how “a former Microsoft executive and his firm Cloverleaf have become modern-day land men, packaging electricity and land for data centers.”  He and his firm were portrayed as intrepid (“He’s a wildcatter”; “the team has faced hostile town halls… and also faces the risk that the A.I. boom fizzles out”), suitable (“they work at the intersection of utility companies and tech giants”), and timely (“their product - powered land, they call it - has become one of the nation’s most valuable commodities”).  Mickle seemed admiring, yet that may have been the last positive article on those facilities I have seen.

Later that month came out “Local Opposition Is Slowing A.I. Data Centers.  Wall Street Has Noticed” (Lydia DePillis, The New York Times, March 26^th).  It started with “The torrential wave of data center construction for artificial intelligence has seemed unstoppable,” and moved to “but lately, zoning commissions and county councils across the country have been resisting.”  Of “the top A.I. companies’” $710 billion 2026 facility-spending expectations, many have shifted their plans from resistive states such as Michigan, Oregon, and Wisconsin to more compliant Texas and New Mexico.  Yet “if America were to adopt A.I. at the scale that its boosters are banking on, data centers would need to be built closer to cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago.”  The piece ended with doubt, specifically “if we assume tomorrow that data center construction stops… the ripple effects across the semiconductor industry would be pretty substantial.”

Next, we went as far as “Something Liberals and Conservatives Agree On:  Hatred of Data Centers” (Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, May 1^st).  “Early evidence suggests that Americans - once agnostic - are now souring on (data centers),” which a Milwaukee comedian called “the most bipartisan issue since beer.”  The refreshing anecdotals here featured liberals and conservatives finding common cause, when, for example, a Republican sportsman concerned about his fishing river joined with “a left-leaning musician and environmental activist.”  Although the article emphasized Michigan, it also mentioned related events in four other states.

Here, the June 11^th River Reporter led off with Patrick Kelly’s “Data centers delayed.”  “On Thursday, June 4, the New York State Legislature passed a moratorium on the approval of the development of large data centers for one year, among other regulations.”  Per “New York becomes first state to freeze new AI data centers in move critics warn could drive away jobs” (Bonny Chu, Fox Business, July 14^th), the state’s governor Kathy Hochul signed it, mandating “the nation’s first statewide temporary ban on new AI data centers.”  Per Hochul, who also wants to “repeal sales tax exemptions for large data centers,” “the initiative would require large data centers to shoulder more of the infrastructure costs they create and is intended to protect New Yorkers from rising utility bills and other financial risks associated with the industry’s rapid expansion.”  There will be more.

Here is also a political opportunity, as, per New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom on June 14^th, “Hating Data Centers Is a Winning Issue.”  She suggested it especially for Democrats, who could use that as a platform plank with more perceived sincerity than the Republicans would gain if they matched it.  As Cottom put it, “the voters showing up to fight data centers demonstrate that a lot of us want something different… Democrats… need a national message equal to the righteous rage driving millions of Americans to look up from their enemy and finally see, instead, a neighbor and future worth fighting for.”  Yes, “it’s simple.”

We know about these facilities’ impact on water and power, but how about auditory effects?  As Adeel Hassan explained in the New York Times on June 17^th, “The Cloud Has Sound:  The Unrelenting and Unseen Cost of A.I. Data Centers.”  They sound “like a low-frequency thrum of a neighbor’s central air-conditioning unit, an airplane flying overhead at high altitude or a truck engine idling down the road.  But it feels like the vibrating, rhythmic pulse of a subwoofer from a party that will never end… and some who live closest to data centers that emit the noise have reached their wit’s end trying to block it out.”  Unlike “many traditional community noise sources - like airports and freeways,” the disturbance comes out around the clock.  Although excessive sound in our country is usually unregulated, some have filed suit to change that.

Countries hoping for a US AI slowdown have been getting involved, as “China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data centers” (Steven Lee Myers and Dustin Volz, The New York Times, July 9^th).  They - one of the “others” was Iran - put up videos and a comic strip purported to be American-produced, “blaming data centers for soaring electricity bills” and saying they “posed a threat to Americans’ physical and financial well-being.”  These nations’ purpose was to “stoke the debate over data centers” and “deepen our divisions in order to dent our appeal and weaken us from within.”  It all sounds small-scale and unlikely to do real damage, especially since the side they are backing is now, as we will see, a majority position.

Next, “Data Centers to Add Billions in Power Costs in 13 States,” by Ivan Penn on July 14^th, also in the Times.  PJM, “the nation’s largest electrical grid operator,” held “an electricity auction that would add $6.3 billion in costs to the bills of millions of households and businesses within the next three years, an increase driven by the power demands of data centers.”  That’s supply and demand, but shows how those in one huge industry can massively increase the latter.  Appropriately, much of the rest of the piece emphasized supply growth as the solution, as state “governors have complained that PJM has been too slow to connect more power plants, solar and wind farms, batteries and other resources that would have helped lower prices and eased strain on the grid.”  That power network serves 13 states from Tennessee to Michigan and New Jersey.

Then, “US data center protests go national as backlash grows” (Valerie Volcovici and Lisa Baertlein, Reuters, July 18^th).  “Opponents of the rapid buildout of data centers,” namely the “grassroots group” HumansFirst, planned protests that day “in at least 125 locations across the United States, the first coordinated national effort to channel anger at the AI infrastructure expansion that has ramped up over the past year and roiled local politics.”  Participants were expected to “rally against what HumansFirst calls the “unaccountable” buildout of data centers and “unacceptable infringement on our liberty.”” Therefore, the movement now has a point of leadership.

So, “Is This the Fastest Opinion Shift in American Politics” (David Wallace-Wells and Robinson Meyer, The New York Times, July 15^th)?  The authors said that “seventy-one percent of Americans say they don’t want an A.I. data center built close to where they live,” changing from “last fall” when we were “almost exactly evenly split.”  Wallace-Wells and Meyer called it “shocking” and “absolutely crazy,” in “an insanely polarized country, which means it isn’t very often that you see a political supermajority on any issue, let alone one that emerges almost out of nowhere to announce itself as a major new front in our politics.” 

“So what’s actually going on here?”  The authors of the previous piece took a swing at that, and we can too.  It’s a rare combination of strongly valid local concerns, feelings of being pushed aside by stereotypically rapacious titanic corporations, failure of people to see any end in sight, a perception among at least half of Americans that the economy and the system in general are not working for them, and several more factors.  It will not end soon.  It will be hugely discouraging to companies.  But it will find balance.  There are places within our borders godforsaken enough to be considered by most to be suitable for such data centers.  When benefits from AI start making it to ordinary people, views will shift - slightly.  In the meantime, as I predicted on New Year’s Eve, in the artificial intelligence world a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.