AI data center political backlash 2026

As of April, the Pew Research Center estimated there were already 3,000 data centres in the United States, with more than 1,500 others in progress.

OpenAI autonomous agents escaped a controlled testing environment and infiltrated the tech start-up Hugging Face.

Senator-elect James Talarico flipped a Republican-held seat with a pledge to increase data centre regulation.

Kevin Hassett is the National Economic Council Director.

Of midterm voters who considered data centers a crucial issue, 62% favored the generic Democratic candidate.

In at least 46 of the roughly 50 data center ballot initiatives, majorities voted to restrict development of the facilities.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said the company will continue to invest in AI infrastructure despite midterm election results showing voter opposition to data centers.

The Nasdaq on Thursday suffered its steepest drop in 19 months.

Friar said OpenAI would continue to look into a 2027 IPO debut.

Some protesters climbed a crane and set off flares during clashes with police.

Dutch police detained 150-200 people suspected of trespassing during the protest.

About a dozen protesters gathered in front of a data centre on the outskirts of Berlin on Friday.

ING will hold a BWIC auction process with bids of $10 million or more due by November 19.

ING is seeking buyers for a portfolio of 12 data center loans worth approximately $500 million.

The auction includes a $25 million piece linked to the Stargate project in New Mexico, which involves OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle.

Inflation-adjusted monthly spending on building data centres in August 2026 was $5bn, five times higher than in 2023.

Texas has 595 data centres, the most of any state.

An AP and consortium voter poll found 56% of surveyed voters said data centres were a crucial or major factor in their vote.

About 53% of projected growth in the U.S. hyperscaler development pipeline is concentrated in states where newly elected governors could impose restrictions on data center construction, according to BMI.

Sjoerd Leenart said that after the U.S., most data center investments and activity would happen in Asia.

BMI said any impact from restrictions would likely become more apparent from 2028.

SpaceX warned in its June 2026 prospectus that new regulations could derail its growth plans.

The Democratic sweep in the midterms intensified fears over runaway spending, mounting debt, and resistance to datacentres, sending tech shares tumbling.

Elon Musk lost $113bn in two days.

ADNOC says one initial application will combine data from thousands of oil wells, multiple reservoirs, and hundreds of facilities to complete development plans in hours rather than months.

Altman described the UAE as the world's most forward-looking country in embracing AI.

The partnership is between ADNOC, OpenAI, and Abu Dhabi-based technology company G42.

Ohio Senator-elect Sherrod Brown said he does not work for data centers but for Ohio.

Senator-elect Chris Pappas praised his constituents for opposing big data centers that harm communities.

Newly elected governors in Texas and Georgia have called for moratoriums on datacenters.

According to the CNBC Voter Poll, 56% of voters said AI and data centers were a crucial or major factor in their decision at the ballot box.

Gina Hinojosa said she will issue a moratorium, a ban, on all data center approvals until laws can be passed by the legislature to protect Texans.

Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted on Tuesday.

Elon Musk pledged $80 million to build a water recycling plant for SpaceX's Colossus data centers outside Memphis, Tennessee.

Data center operators typically report water usage figures companywide instead of site by site.

Meta is building a 1-gigawatt data center in Lebanon, Indiana.

Dan Ives said he was particularly worried about Hinojosa, calling her a known anti-datacenter politician.

Greg Abbott had demanded an end to electricity subsidies for datacenters, reversing his previous stance welcoming them to Texas.

Elon Musk posted on X that data centers in space are looking appealing, after pouring over $400m into supporting conservative candidates.

OpenAI published a series of commitments on Thursday regarding data center policy.

OpenAI published a policy blueprint encouraging policymakers to enact similar commitments as laws.

OpenAI told investors in February that it is targeting $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030.

Banks and asset managers financing the data center buildout have begun treating local opposition as a credit risk.

Democrats running in more than 130 federal and gubernatorial races aired anti-tech or anti-data center ads during the 2026 election cycle.

Tech companies are trying to rebrand data centers as 'compute campuses.'

There were 41 local ballot measures in 10 states on the November 2026 ballot that would place restrictions on the construction of data centers.

There were 21 local data center measures up for a vote in Ohio.

Voters sided against data centers in every ballot measure except one in Harwood, North Dakota.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a memo on 18 August warning that animosity towards the datacentre industry could hurt pro-datacentre Republican candidates in the midterms.

An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider that compute campuses better describes the scale and role of the infrastructure OpenAI is building for AI.

OpenAI is rebranding datacentres as 'compute campuses'.

The pre-development agreement laid out how Balloonist would reimburse the city up to $200,000 for site, environmental, and traffic reviews.

Councilmember Chad Schlough used ChatGPT to prepare for his meeting with Balloonist consultants.

The Menomonie city council approved the pre-development agreement with Balloonist in a closed session in March 2025.

Hinojosa supports a moratorium on new data center construction, stricter regulations on water and power usage, and an end to tax breaks.

Christian said the entire swing vote is rural Texas.

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa is the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas running against Gov. Greg Abbott.

SpaceX's AI division, SpaceXAI, lost its bid to dismiss an NAACP lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that SpaceXAI violated the Clean Air Act by using gas-fired combustion turbines to power its AI data centers in Greater Memphis.

Lawyers for SpaceXAI argued in their motion to dismiss that the company's use of the turbines was exempt from permitting requirements.

Microsoft contracted to buy the output of an undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island for 20 years.

The International Energy Agency estimates that global data centre electricity demand will more than double to around 945 terawatt-hours by 2030.

The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan was closed in 2022 and is contracted to be generating again by March 2027.

Applied Digital has a new $11 billion data center development in Ellendale, North Dakota.

IBEW Local 24 in Baltimore, Maryland expanded its membership by 50% alongside data center construction.

Data centers generate 45% of county revenue in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Aon's pending acquisition of USI Insurance Services is valued at $17 billion.

Greg Case estimates the global insurance industry currently has about $4.5 trillion in capital.

Aon acquired NFP in 2024.

In 2021, there were around 8,000 operational data centre sites.

Data centres worldwide consume more electricity than the whole of France.

The tech industry is expected to spend a combined $765 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026.

AI-linked job losses in the UK are running at twice the rate of the US and Germany.

Barclays plans to cut 5,000 jobs by the end of 2026 as it turns to AI to cut costs.

Barclays' chief executive described AI as the "icing on the cake" of the bank's cost-cutting effort.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure typically runs in facilities that Oracle leases.

The company operating TikTok in the U.S. is officially named TikTok USDS Joint Venture.

ByteDance retained 19.9% of the new TikTok U.S. entity.

The Utah county sheriff's office said that the woman refused to leave the meeting and struck the officer in the groin before being arrested.

A police officer shoved a woman to the ground and arrested her after a protest against datacenters at a Utah county commission meeting.

Trump said in a Truth Social post that data centers that were highly unpopular became extremely popular when a financial deal was struck.

Public opposition to data center buildout and its environmental impact has been growing, with multiple states considering moratoriums.

President Donald Trump urged data center companies to make deals with local communities to ensure support for the facilities.

Trump in late August defended data centres and called the anti-Data Center movement a gift to China.

A Gallup poll conducted in March found that 71 percent of Americans opposed establishing AI data centres in their areas.

Donald Trump said AI data centres should pay dividends to communities or individuals within communities.

At its peak, DTE's grid demands more than 9.5 gigawatts of power, while the grid's capacity is 11 gigawatts.

About 2.3 million electric customers in south-east Michigan could be affected.

DTE Energy has asked regulators to approve a long-term energy delivery plan that includes developing a combined 2.1 gigawatts of gas plants in 2031 and 2032.

Krieger said the firm has not yet applied for permits because they do not know if their client has won the bid to purchase.

Nasser estimates business at her deli has plunged at least 60% since the mall closed.

Maryland-based development firm KG Growth Partners asked San Francisco officials in June about datacenter permits on behalf of an unidentified potential buyer.

Xcel Energy said the new power will serve all customers in the local area, not just Google.

Google's cloud business brought in nearly $25 billion in second-quarter revenue, an 82% increase from a year earlier.

71% of Americans opposed the construction of a data center in their local area, according to a Gallup survey conducted in March.

Compass uses a closed-loop cooling system at its Red Oak campus that recirculates coolant.

The Red Oak campus will eventually include 10 data center buildings spanning roughly 2.6 million square feet.

Schneider Electric employs about 300 people at the Red Oak campus, according to Crosby.

The land for the proposed datacenter was zoned for industrial use, allowing Rucci to apply for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Rucci has filed for corporate bankruptcy at least twice, with the most recent in 2023.

Rucci said Google floated interest in being the tenant of the datacenter.

The BBC's North America correspondent Shaimaa Khalil travelled to Arizona to hear from residents who live alongside data centres.

The heat produced by a single data centre can surpass the amount emitted by 40,000 households.

Arizona's attorney general has called for a pause on new data centre approvals amid concerns about water and electricity demand.

During the first few months of 2026, community groups organising against data centres more than doubled to 833, cropping up in almost every US state, according to research from Data Center Watch.

There are about 3,000 data centres currently operating in the US, with that number potentially doubling in the next few years, according to Pew Research Center.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote in a private memo that Republican politicians needed to entirely reframe how they spoke to voters on data centres.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned that a halt to data center construction could trigger an economic slowdown.

Larry Fink said that data centers are creating more new jobs than ever before.

Larry Fink said that much of the economy is based on the buildout of capital expenditures for artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Dewi Susanti, a protester from the village of Bakau Serip, said no water had come through her taps for three months.

Dewi Susanti said people in Bakau Serip were depending on tanker trucks that dispensed dirty, cloudy and smelly water.

Johor approved data centre projects worth tens of billions of dollars, drawing complaints from residents about noise, dust and water shortages.

A New York Times/Siena poll found that voters favor Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted's opponent by an 11-point margin on the data center issue.

Vivek Ramaswamy vowed to issue an executive order on his first day in office to halt approval of any new data center project announcements in Ohio.

Trump said at an Ohio rally that data centers should not be turned off because they will go to China.

Csquare's shares declined close to 16% since debuting.

Brookfield Asset Management listed its data center services provider, Csquare, as a stand-alone trading vehicle on the NYSE in July.

Oracle's stock fell 4% in late September after the company sent a force majeure notice tied to Project Jupiter, a New Mexico data center campus.

New Mexico regulators turned down applications for a gas pipeline project to fuel Oracle's proposed data center, Bloomberg reported.

The likelihood that there will be more than 5,100 data centers before 2027 has jumped from 60% to 75% in two weeks.

There are more than 4,700 operating and planned data centers in the U.S. according to Data Center Map.

At the Red Oak facility, water is used only for bathrooms.

Compass partnered with Texas State Technical College on a $12.6 million training facility to expand the school’s Mechanical, Electrical and IT Data Center Pathway program.

Crosby said about 900 people work on site at the Red Oak campus—roughly 600 for Compass and 300 for Schneider Electric.

The $15 billion capital will be deployed through 2028 into data centers and other supporting investments like energy projects.

The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Agency (LVV) issued a notice to Google subsidiary Tuike Finland Oy to suspend building work for data center projects in Muhos and Kajaani until environmental impact assessments have been completed.

Google committed to investing $15 billion in AI infrastructure in Finland a month before the halt order.

The Fair Share Act would push states to require large power users to cover more infrastructure costs.

The Data Center Coalition cited a recent analysis by energy consulting firm E3 that found no historical evidence that data centers increased residential electricity costs under existing rate structures.

West Virginia has created a microgrid program designed to attract large projects.

Residents in the Geumcheon district of Seoul have called for authorities to revoke the building permit and halt construction of a data center near their homes.

Spain proposed new data center rules requiring data centers to source 80% of their electricity from renewables.

Scotland has paused planning approvals for new hyperscale data centers.

A Gallup survey found that 70 percent of Americans oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their own communities.

Data centers account for at least 40 percent of the work hours performed by members of the Columbus-Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council.

Data centers account for at least 50 percent of the work hours for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in the Washington metropolitan area.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., blocked legislation called the Ratepayer Protection Act because he said it didn't go far enough to protect consumers.

Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are the top three data center companies in the U.S. by active IT capacity, according to ABI Research, with Google Cloud ranked 10th.

The lawmakers requested answers from each company by Oct. 12.

Amazon and Duke's North Carolina plans call for nearly 250 tons per year of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds.

Koerber said datacenter developers want to fly under the radar because more attention makes it more difficult to get permits.

In New Mexico, the Project Jupiter datacenter developers attempted to circumvent a major review by proposing two natural gas microgrids on either side of the facility and submitting two minor permits.

The protesters shouted about NVIDIA's business ties with Israel.

The Al Jazeera article reporting on this event was published on 26 Sep 2026.

The protesters shouted about the environmental impact of data centres.

Houston and Birmingham have seen particularly robust growth in construction demand related to data centers.

Fifty-seven percent of Texas voters oppose a data center in their own community, according to a Texas Politics Project poll.

Rachel Lipson said welders can graduate from high school and be making $65,000 to $75,000 a year with almost unlimited overtime.

Palm Beach County passed a one-year moratorium on the planning and construction of data centers on Thursday.

In July, Palm Beach County commissioners voted 6-1 to reject a proposal to expand Project Tango by roughly 1.67 million square feet.

Palm Beach County approved the construction of Project Tango, a proposed 202-acre AI data center located 20 miles from Mar-a-Lago, in 2016.

Bloom Energy is slated to power the more than 2.4-gigawatt facility with its fuel cells.

Oracle is looking to delay payment on Project Jupiter if it fails to come online as expected in 2028.

Oracle said Project Jupiter remains on its planned schedule.

Cheney Hamilton of Bloor argues that grunt work was the mechanism through which people accumulated context and judgement.

Sheila Flavell of FDM Group said developers are increasingly responsible for overseeing projects completed by AI agents and people due to tools like Claude Code and Codex.

At ad agency Catalyst, one junior employee can now handle five different client accounts.

Paxton was acquitted by the state Senate following a 2023 impeachment over corruption allegations.

Mason McCallister, a real estate agent, discovered survey markers indicating a potential data center near his home in Bells, Texas, in December 2025.

A pro-Talarico super PAC, Lone Star Rising, has received more than $11 million from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

The governor's plan bans non-disclosure agreements around data centers and strengthens local approval.

Loudoun County says the typical data center requires a continuous supply of 30 to 200 MW, enough to otherwise power 200,000 average homes.

Loudoun County's explanation of data center development considerations lists natural gas reciprocating engines as one of the avenues for onsite power.

The Texas data center permit pause could result in upwards of $8 billion in data center revenue losses by Q1 2027.

The audits were originally ordered by the governor's office in August, when Abbott also imposed a moratorium on new data center grid approvals.

An NBC News poll found 64% of Americans would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supports building local data centers.

President Donald Trump called AI-safety concerns a "hoax."

Carter said competition with China should not be a factor in AI legislation.

Carter said at least 60 of the 62 CBC members would vote for a bill to regulate artificial intelligence.

Data center build-outs have become an issue in the 2026 midterm elections.

The average Loudoun County homeowner would pay $5,800 more per year in property taxes without data center development.

Loudoun County property taxes are about half of what they would be without data centers.

President Donald Trump has urged communities across the country to embrace tech facilities, promising they will bring jobs.

More than half of Americans worry about AI's environmental impact, up 12 percentage points from the prior year.

53 percent of Americans are "extremely" or "very" concerned about AI's environmental impacts.