Growing resistance to data centers could slow AI infrastructure growth
A new report from the Brookings Institution suggests that local opposition to data center projects is becoming a serious challenge for AI infrastructure expansion across the United States. The think tank warns that disputes over electricity consumption, water usage, tax arrangements, and environmental impact are increasingly delaying or threatening these critical facilities.
I think what’s happening here is pretty straightforward—communities are pushing back against what they see as disruptive industrial development. And honestly, they have some valid points. These facilities consume enormous amounts of resources. According to Pew Research data from last October, U.S. data centers used about 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024. That’s roughly equivalent to Pakistan’s entire annual energy demand.
The community satisfaction metric
Shaolei Ren, an electrical engineering professor at UC Riverside, makes an interesting observation. He told Decrypt that community satisfaction should be the primary metric for these projects. “Ultimately, the metric that really matters is community satisfaction, and that is what we should be optimizing for,” he said. There’s a growing recognition, he added, that local voices matter in planning decisions.
Ren’s point about measurement sticks with me. “You cannot improve what you do not measure,” he noted. Perhaps that’s where some of the tension originates—without clear metrics and transparency, communities feel they’re being asked to trust promises without evidence.
The political and economic landscape
The timing of this report is notable. Demand for computing power continues to grow rapidly, and the Trump administration has been pushing AI infrastructure expansion. In January 2025, Trump announced Stargate, a $500 billion AI initiative backed by OpenAI and Oracle. That announcement included calls for long-term safeguards to ensure communities benefit from these developments.
Major tech companies aren’t sitting still either. Amazon and Nvidia have announced multibillion-dollar investments in data center expansion. According to Data Center Map, there are nearly 4,000 data centers in the U.S. and about 10,700 worldwide. Much of the new development is concentrated in Southern states—North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and others.
Proposed solutions and community concerns
Brookings suggests legally binding community benefit agreements as a potential solution. These agreements would define costs, subsidies, and tax revenues while setting enforceable commitments for jobs, resource use, and pollution control. The report argues that well-crafted agreements could address public concerns and mitigate known problems.
Local advocates point out another issue—many of these facilities are being built in low and middle-income areas that may lack political influence to oppose them effectively. There’s a sense that these communities bear the environmental costs while others reap the economic benefits.
The report describes a growing “techlash” against the AI sector, driven by anxieties over job displacement, energy consumption, and environmental impact. Without addressing these community concerns, Brookings warns that opposition could slow data center construction, weaken AI growth, and limit the benefits promised by both tech firms and government officials.
It’s a complex situation with no easy answers. On one hand, AI infrastructure is clearly important for economic and technological development. On the other, communities have legitimate concerns about their quality of life and environmental impact. Finding a balance will require more than just technical solutions—it will need genuine engagement and transparent processes that communities can trust.
