Governments worldwide are pushing to attract AI computing infrastructure, but must grapple with data centers’ demands on resources and mounting local opposition.
The massive buildings stuffed with specialised chips hungry for power and water have sparked objections from locals around the world.
Voter concerns have sparked action from local and national governments, while American activists called for nationwide demonstrations on July 18.
Opposition to data centers from the U.S. to India tends to focus on three major themes: Land, power and water.
Data centers can occupy vast swathes of land, with Meta’s Prometheus site in Ohio measuring “a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.”
In countries with weaker property protections, some have complained of being shouldered aside in favor of tech construction — including Indian farmers in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, as tech news outlet Rest of World reported in April.
Meanwhile data centers filled with top-of-the-line chips can draw the energy of a city.
At 630 megawatts according to industry tracker Epoch AI, Prometheus is equivalent to around half a million American family homes.
Bloomberg News found in a September 2025 analysis that electricity could be as much as 267 percent more expensive in areas of the U.S. with high concentrations of data centers.
And companies’ off-grid generators — such as SpaceXAI’s gas turbines at its Colossus facility in Memphis — have drawn complaints of their own.
The NAACP campaign group in April filed a legal case alleging the turbines are harming mostly Black neighborhoods with pollutants.
As the chips get hot while they work, data centers need cooling — mostly using water.
While the absolute amount of water used is small — around 0.3 percent of total supply in the U.S., according to electronics magazine IEEE Spectrum — many are built in areas already facing high water stress.
Other complaints against data centers include carbon emissions, noise and ultra-low-frequency “infrasound” vibrations that can be felt in the body.
Beyond civil opposition to data centers, security nonprofit The Soufan Group in May highlighted “a rise in direct threats against individuals perceived as driving [AI] technology forward” in the U.S.
Two major incidents this year have been a Molotov cocktail attack on OpenAI chief Sam Altman’s house and a gun attack on the home of an Indianapolis politician.
Beyond America, campaigners across Europe have challenged data center projects on grounds from environmental concerns to claims governments have granted undue favours, such as a legal action in
Spain’s Aragon region against a massive data centre buildout by Amazon.
And in densely-populated Japan, a shortage of space has projects being planned in or near residential neighborhoods.
That has prompted legal action from some residents, such as against a proposed new data center in Tokyo commuter town Inzai, which already hosts 10 facilities.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has vowed to pass laws requiring data centers to feed in to the power grid more than they draw and minimize water usage.
The country “cannot settle for a short-term boom in capital expenditure and construction,” he said last week.
Also last week, New York became the first U.S. state to impose a general moratorium on new large data center projects, also citing power and water drain.
But Maine governor Janet Mills vetoed a similar would-be moratorium in April, citing the economic impact.
In Europe, Amsterdam has imposed a moratorium on construction of new data centers over space and power concerns.
And Denmark has placed data centers at the bottom of its priority list for access to electricity, warning of strain on its power grid.
