Power Play: How Data Centers Broke American Politics

The data center backlash of 2026 has united people

from the complete opposite ends

of the political spectrum. [gentle music]

It looks set to be the issue of the midterms.

I've spent years reporting on energy and the environment,

but I've never encountered anything

like the fury that's built up against data centers.

For decades, data centers were quietly built all over the US

in places with both fiber connectivity

and proximity to political power.

You may have lived near one and never heard much about it,

but then the AI race began.

Tech oligarchs started arguing that we needed to build

as many data centers as possible as quickly as possible.

The Trump administration bought in on this vision,

rolling back environmental regulations to help.

Data centers magnitudes larger than their predecessors

began popping up seemingly everywhere.

Companies scurried to find cheap land, power, and water.

Local governments were inundated

with secret multimillion dollar deals

and non-disclosure agreements for them,

and the resistance began.

Polling now shows that 75% of Americans would oppose

a data center being built in their neighborhood.

In the last month, Republicans and Democrats

who were previously data center friendly,

but are facing tough reelections, have done an about-face.

Candidates in battleground states are fighting each other

to see who can seem tougher on the industry.

But even as public opinion has soured,

construction has continued.

July was the busiest month

for data center construction in the US.

How did we get here? Where is this all going?

The data center backlash is wrapped up

in so many different forces playing out in American society,

from outrage at tech oligarchs, worried about energy bills,

to environmental concerns about water and air quality,

and anxieties about what AI itself means for the future.

Very simply, this isn't going away anytime soon.

You can follow the latest on data centers

in my new weekly column at wired.com.

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