WINDSOR, Colorado — Julie Cline remembers when her small town’s data center debate got personal: A longtime friend stopped speaking to her.
Developers had proposed building a massive data center in an industrial park across the street from the woman’s house, and she felt Cline, the mayor, wasn’t doing enough to stop it.
Cline said she thought it was a better use of the town’s limited budget and resources to try to mitigate the project, which is just over the municipal border on unincorporated land. That wasn’t good enough for her friend, Cline said. The woman has mentioned selling her house to move away from the town of about 48,000 people nestled in farmland about 60 miles north of Denver.
“People have this idea that data centers are all Skynet and Terminator,” Cline, 55, said. “There’s a lot of fear of the unknown. That’s what makes people scared. They don’t know what the next evolution will be. And I understand that.”
Opposition to the staggering scale of growing data center construction has multiplied nationwide, pitting Americans against some of the world’s most powerful companies over environmental, economic and tax concerns. One estimate puts the value of the data center buildout at $10.3 trillion through 2032 — a larger investment than interstate highways or the railroads.
Fifty-four percent of Americans now consider data centers bad for the environment, up from 39% in January, according to a Pew Research Center survey published Sept. 22. The survey also found that 50% consider data centers bad for home energy costs, up from 38% in January, and 49% consider them bad for nearby quality of life, up from 30% at the start of the year.
The survey was conducted from July 20 to Aug. 9 among 10,548 U.S. adults. It found that while opposition from Democratic voters drove much of the change, Republicans were also increasingly concerned. Nationwide, some data center hearings have erupted into shouting matches, and police have had to intervene.
Data centers power everything from smartphones and social media to newspaper websites and customer service chatbots. They also help run artificial intelligence systems that some workers, at times dubiously, have been required to use as they wonder whether computers will replace them.
The Data Center Coalition — an industry group whose members include Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon Web Services and OpenAI — says it works with communities to minimize impacts, including noise and electricity and water use. Data centers in 2024 directly employed more than 1 million workers and paid $204 billion in local, state and federal taxes, according to the coalition.
“The data center industry remains committed to being responsible partners where we operate, which includes paying our full energy costs and investing in local jobs and workforce development,” Josh Levi, the coalition’s president, said in a recent statement.
The debate has put President Donald Trump — who calls data centers an “incredible industry” and says concerns about AI escaping human control are a “hoax” — at odds with some fellow Republicans facing the midterm elections. In some communities, opposition has crossed party lines and united people over broader questions about AI’s role in society.
Cline said a hearing on a proposed Walmart in Windsor drew comments from about 30 people. A meeting about the proposed data center drew close to 300.
“That is the most people who have pretty much ever showed up for anything,” she said.
Data Center Opposition Grows Nationwide
During interviews in Colorado, Kentucky, New York and Wyoming, Americans expressed deep skepticism to USA TODAY about developers’ promises on jobs, taxes and the environment. In the first six months of 2026, opposition blocked or delayed at least 120 data center projects worth $198 billion, according to a count by Data Center Watch. Dozens of statehouses intensified efforts to regulate siting, utilities and infrastructure, the group said.
The pushback is translating into political campaigns, ballot initiatives and actions by state and local governments. In July, New York enacted a one-year moratorium on construction of new data centers that use 50 megawatts or more of power. California has passed a slate of data center and AI reform legislation.
In November, 35 ballot measures related to data centers will come up for votes in various states, including California, Florida, Kansas and Ohio, according to Ballotpedia.
“These data companies have shown themselves that they’re not particularly trustworthy actors, and anything they promise is something they could back out of,” said Ben Green, an assistant professor of information and public policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The growing election-season pushback reflects the reality that many communities hosting data centers find them a net loss, Green said. The centers rarely create more than a handful of low-paying jobs, usually for security guards and maintenance workers, he said, while local officials are often quick to hand out tax breaks to some of the world’s most profitable companies.
A July 2025 study co-authored by Green found that mostly rural areas where data centers are being built tend to lose out on taxes, job growth, electricity rates and water use. The public backlash, he said, is a result of how developers operated in the past: in secret, often pitting communities against one another.
“Data centers are shaping a lot of elections and campaigning,” Green said. “People are showing up to town hall meetings in numbers that you would not normally see. There’s a lot of pressure on candidates.”
Memphis Residents Question Costs and Benefits
Loretta Thornton has watched one of Elon Musk’s data centers rise within sight of her backyard.
The 66-year-old retired postal worker and military veteran lives in Greater Memphis’ Whitehaven neighborhood, on a once-quiet street near Colossus 2. One of the nation’s largest operating data centers, it is among a cluster of SpaceXAI data facilities on the Mississippi-Tennessee border.
The region is the site of constant construction involving dump trucks, beeping and gas fumes. It reminds her of the 1990 allied invasion of Iraq.
“You can hear it all night, all day,” she told USA TODAY. “You can’t really rest that good.”
She’s skeptical that tax revenue or jobs will outweigh the risks to land, water or her own peace. She fears she can’t sell her home, even if she wanted to. And she figures she wouldn’t stand a chance suing a wealthy corporation. So she’s looking to this fall’s election and to candidates pushing for more regulation.
Musk’s first data center in the Greater Memphis area, Colossus 1, went up in 2024 in Boxtown, a mostly Black, low-income industrial neighborhood. It was built to train and run Grok, an AI chatbot.
Another data center sits across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi, where temporary natural gas turbines are set to be replaced with a permanent gas turbine power plant. Musk recently announced a further expansion in the area.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young has touted that 25% of the company’s taxes will go to communities around the plants. But community activists have raised concerns about pollution from unpermitted gas turbines.
Public hearings in Southaven have drawn crowds of upset residents. In June, Mississippi residents sued Musk’s companies, saying noise eroded their health and home values, Reuters reported. The NAACP sued xAI in April, accusing the company of violating U.S. environmental rules.
It has helped propel Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, a co-founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution, into a campaign for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District seat. Pearson, who lives three miles from the Boxtown data center, is running against GOP state Sen. Brent Taylor, who touts his efforts to ensure data centers pay power costs.
Pearson said he has found broad, bipartisan concern on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the Memphis City Council is weighing a 12-month pause on new data center approvals, along with stricter zoning and power rules. Some critics are particularly concerned about how the facilities are powered, often using nuclear energy, coal or natural gas rather than renewables.
“People are starting to see how our country is split between the billionaires and the rest of us, and we have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our interests and our communities more than the profits of the billionaire class,” Pearson said.
Earlier this year, Devan Jenkins, 22, who lives near Whitehaven, took a USA TODAY reporter on a drive around her neighborhood near the state line, past construction cranes, dump trucks and humming generators. A utility locator, she lives amid fewer stands of trees and more dust next to her father, James Richard Jenkins, 77, who has occupied his home for decades. She’s voting this fall in hopes of new protections, but sees it as an uphill fight as AI companies gain wealth and power.
“We all feel hopeless about it,” she said recently.
Kentucky Projects Face Lawsuits and Local Opposition
In early March, the planning commission in Franklin, Kentucky, approved the preliminary plan for a 200-acre data center. The decision followed an unusually tense, hourslong meeting where opponents were ejected by police.
Since then, the proposed project by TenKey LandCo has been mired in lawsuits. The controversy is roiling the surrounding rural county of corn and soybean farms.
TenKey said the project will generate its own power, use minimal city water and create at least 200 jobs — without polluting the air or water or driving up electric bills.
But residents have formed an opposition group, calling for transparency and questioning the impact of power turbines and water use in karst landscapes. A similar concern has arisen to the north, in Cave City, Kentucky, near Mammoth Cave National Park, where a $4.8 billion hyperscale data center could demand 1,200 megawatts of power — enough for more than 1 million U.S. homes, or over half of all households in Kentucky. The project is being hotly debated.
In Franklin, the issue has become part of local political races, cutting across traditional party loyalties in a region Trump handily won in 2024.
“I mean, I like hamburgers. But I don’t want a freaking slaughterhouse in my backyard,” said Kelly Bush, a Franklin city commissioner who operates a restaurant and is running for mayor.
“City governments are just not fast enough to react, and they’re also too scared to react because they’re scared of getting sued,” Bush said.
TenKey has sued Simpson County over development restrictions. The nonprofit Franklin Citizens for Responsible Development also filed suit, arguing that the city’s planning commission erred in approving TenKey’s plan despite “threats to the health, safety, and welfare of nearby residents and businesses.”
Riley Bright, who owns Bright’s Antique World and an outdoor flea market not far from the proposed development, is a member of that group. He said he is “not against progress” or inherently opposed to data centers, which have been around for decades.
But Bright argued the community needs to better understand the economic and environmental costs. He worries about noise and other effects.
“Is it going to affect my business? I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t,” he said.
Wyoming Residents Weigh Data Centers Against Other Development
The windswept plains around Cheyenne, Wyoming, are already home to more than a dozen data centers, with at least five more planned or under construction. Antelope watch as heavy equipment operators scrape the ground flat while other workers lay water and power lines.
Trump won the highly conservative state with more than 70% of the vote in the 2024 election, and he remains popular. But many residents have concerns about data centers.
City Councilman Mark Moody describes himself as a “MAGA conservative” and said data centers keep topping the list of concerns among his constituents. As a lifelong Republican who believes deeply in a strong national defense, Moody said he’s worried blocking data centers could give China an edge. Like many rural residents, he worries they’re being built on prime agricultural land and interfering with wildlife.
“If these were oil wells, there would probably be no objection here,” he said.
Colorado Officials Try to Mitigate Impacts
In Windsor, Cline still routinely meets with constituents to talk about the data center. Because the site is just outside the town’s boundaries, Windsor could do little to halt its construction. Cline said the town got developers to agree to some mitigation, including screening the site from a nearby pedestrian trail that connects Windsor to neighboring Greeley. The towns have fought over who will provide water and sewer services to the site.
Cline, who works for the technology company HP, said she hopes Windsor residents will eventually tolerate, if not appreciate, the data center. But she’s not optimistic. This fall, opponents used robocalls and an error-filled flyer — which she said appeared to have been created by AI — to spur community opposition. She suspects lawsuits could follow.
The Weld County Commission, which governs unincorporated land in the area, approved the data center project Sept. 9. Commission member Scott James, who has served in elected office for nearly 30 years, said he’s never seen fights like those over data centers. James said data centers can be a net positive for communities, especially if elected officials properly mitigate their impacts on electricity bills and water.
Like many other Republicans, James said he’s worried slowing data center development could let China leapfrog the United States. But he said that needs to be balanced against the needs of Americans who are rightly worried that building more data centers could cost them their jobs.
“The thing is moving at such a speed that everyone is reacting. No one is planning,” he said. “I have never seen anything more contentious.”
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