WINDSOR, CO ‒ Julie Cline remembers the moment 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 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 the 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 on Sept. 22. That same survey found 50% consider data centers bad for home energy costs, up from 38% in January, and 49% considered 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 changes, 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 smart phones to Facebook to newspaper websites to customer service chatbots. But they also help run artificial intelligence systems that many employers have forced upon at-times dubious workers wondering if they're going to be replaced by computers.
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 usage. 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 over data centers has put President Donald Trump ‒ who calls them an "incredible industry" and says concerns about AI wresting free of human control a "hoax" ‒ at odds with some fellow Republicans facing the midterm elections. Trump also wants Americans to call AI "super intelligence."
In some cases, opposition to data centers has cut across party lines and united people over bigger questions about the role AI should play in American society.
Cline said a hearing on a proposed Walmart in Windsor drew comments from about 30 people. In contrast, she said, 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 to USA TODAY deep skepticism over the promises made by data center developers over 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 regulation efforts around siting, utilities and infrastructure, the group said, as opposition grew.
All that opposition is translating into political campaigns, ballot initiatives and actions by states 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 comprehensive 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 Ballotopedia.
"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, he said, reflects the reality that most communities hosting data centers find them a net loss. The centers rarely create more than a relative handful of low-paying jobs, usually for security guards and maintenance workers, he said, and 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 the mostly rural areas where data centers are being built tend to lose out when it comes to taxes, job growth, electricity rates and water use. The public backlash, he said, is the result of how data center developers operated in the past: in secret, often pitting communities against each other.
"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: 'We all feel hopeless' about data center development
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 that now sits 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 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. Recently, Musk announced a further expansion in the area.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young has touted how 25% of the company’s taxes will go to the communities around the plants. But community activists have been steadily raising concerns over 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 in April sued xAI over the plant and centers, accusing the company of violating U.S. environmental rules.
It has all helped propel Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, a co-founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution. Pearson, who lives three miles from the Boxtown data center, is campaigning for Tennessee’s 9th congressional district seat. He’s running against GOP State Sen. Brent Taylor, who touts his own efforts to ensure data centers pay power costs.
On the campaign trail, Pearson said he’s found broad and bipartisan concern. 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 they're 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 she sees it as an uphill fight as AI corporations gain increasing wealth and power.
“We all feel hopeless about it,” she said recently.
Kentucky: Dueling lawsuits over data-center development
It was early March when the planning commission in the Kentucky city of Franklin, population 10,759, approved the preliminary plan for a 200-acre data center. But it came after an usually tense, hours-long meeting that saw opponents ejected by police.
Since then, the proposed data center project by TenKey LandCo has been mired in lawsuits. The controversy is roiling the surrounding rural county of corn and soybean farms.
TenKey says the projectwill generate its own power, use minimal city water and create at least 200 jobs – and not pollute the air or water or drive up electric bills.
But residents have formed an opposition group, calling for transparency and questioning the impact from power turbines and water in karst landscapes. That's a similar concern just 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 more than half of all households in Kentucky. It 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 filed a lawsuit against Simpson County over development restrictions. The nonprofit Franklin Citizens for Responsible Development filed a lawsuit as well, 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 he argued the community needs to better understand what the costs will be – whether economic or environmental. And he worries about noise and other issues.
“Is it going to affect my business? I don't know. I hope it doesn't,” he said.
Wyoming: Oil wells would likely draw 'no objection' vs. data centers
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 in 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, Moody worries data centers are being built on prime agricultural land, interfering with wildlife.
"If these were oil wells, there would probably be no objection here," he said.
Colorado: 'I have never seen anything more contentious'
In Windsor, Cline still routinely meets with constituents to talk about the data center. Because the site is just outside its boundaries, the town could do little to halt its construction. Cline said her town got the developers to agree to some mitigation, including screening the site from a nearby pedestrian trail that connects Windsor to neighboring Greeley, which has fought with Windsor over who will provide water and sewer services to the site.
Cline, who works for the technology company HP, said she's hopeful that Windsor residents will eventually come to tolerate, if not appreciate, the data center. But she's not optimistic. This fall, data center opponents used robocalls and an error-filled flyer – which she said appeared to have been created by AI – to spur community opposition, she said. She suspects lawsuits could follow.
The Weld County Commission, which governs unincorporated land in the area, approved the data center project on Sept. 9. Commission member Scott James, who has served in elected office for nearly 30 years, said he's never seen fights like the ones 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 rightfully worried 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."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Across the US, local revolts grow as AI data center boom expands
