The public pushback against data center construction projects is only growing stronger, even as some protesting local residents have been arrested in the process. That hasn't perturbed those still standing against the AI infrastructure projects, though, and they continue showing up at town meetings, holding protest rallies, and making themselves heard — even with the 24/7 drone of a data center hum in the background.
The latest effort saw Nashville residents and local politicians move to block the construction of a $700 million data center set to be built right next to the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. The city council approved a blocking measure last week, and now Mayor Freddie O'Connell will wield it to make sure the project doesn't go ahead.
This follows on from another recent story where a Kentucky farming family was offered 10 times their land value to sell up to data center developers, and they refused. Virginia's State Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities, just ruled that data centers must pay for all the required transmission infrastructure that they have exclusive use of, in an effort to reduce energy bills for residents.
Nobody wants to live near a data center
Data center projects have been firmly disliked by large bodies of Americans since the beginning of this major AI buildout. Early in 2025, it became clear that even as the major AI companies were promising hundreds of billions for "AI factories," governments around the world rushed to build capacity. There was only one problem: residents near the proposed build sites would not be taking it lying down.
In April 2025, Elon Musk's Colossus data center was an early target for protest after it was found to be using permitless mobile gas turbines for power. It's been hit with enough pushback since then that SpaceX has now agreed to remove the 69 turbines it ultimately installed, although it is going to take over a year to complete the move of these allegedly mobile turbines.
By the Fall of last year, evidence had begun to mount about the negative impact of these installations. Water shortages and potential contamination, electricity price increases for residents, and the constant, unending noise that may be causing health problems with sub-audible frequencies.
There's also the slowly growing number of "against" voices in polling for new data centers. What started as a light advantage to the "supports" respondents in September became a near-majority a few months later. Now more than 70% of Americans don't want data centers near their homes, and there's little chance of that changing as the stories of issues during and after construction of these facilities continue to mount.
How the people are fighting back
Protest has been at the forefront of the anti-data center campaigners' playbook since the start, and that's not stopping any time soon. On one weekend in July, anti-data center protestors organized in 42 states to stage 142 protests across the country, all calling for blocks, halts, and moratoriums on the data center rollout.
This is after months of campaigning, which led to close to 70 jurisdictions around the country blocking new data center builds. Some of them, permanently.
Where politicians are more on the side of the developers, the people are going to meet them in person. They're going to town halls and seeking meetings and making their voices heard.
Sometimes politicians don't like that, and people are removed - even when protesting peacefully - and in several cases they've actually been arrested. Close to 40 people have been arrested in 2026 for pushing back against data center rollouts. In one case, because they went beyond their allotted speaking time, and in another, because they clapped following an impassioned statement by a fellow citizen.
In other cases, though, politicians are listening. In Nashville, the local council and the mayor are all on board to protect the local Zoo and residents' bills and ears. This is particularly important because it shows that local legislators can use their political power to block data centers — potentially preventing the White House from using its own to drive projects through.
The forever war
The data center builders aren't taking all of this helplessly. They have the ears of government and massive platforms to evangelize AI and data centers; They've been doing it everywhere from the White House to social media. They've tried building in more rural areas where there are fewer people to protest, paying for their own behind-the-grid power, and offering to spend millions in local investment to counter negative effects.
But it's not working. People don't like data centers. They don't want to live near them. And on top of that, many don't even like the technology the hyperscalers want to build this all for, anyway.
It's unlikely that those bankrolling (and hoping to make money on) the data center AI build-out will just give up and go home, but the residents fighting back against their gargantuan construction projects aren't going to do so either.
This is a long war, and one that neither side is likely to back down from. But in a rare ray of hope in 2026's landscape of high PC and electronics prices due to AI data centers soaking up computing hardware, it's one that the people seem to be winning, for now.
4 days ago
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English (US) ·