The Data Center Backlash: Residents Crunch Power Numbers, the Industry Frames the Debate as Cultural

Following the U.S. midterm elections, James O'Donnell, author of this MIT Technology Review report, traveled to Ashburn, Virginia. Nicknamed Data Center Alley, the area is the world's largest data center hub, and one of the earliest hotspots where this wave of anti-data-center pushback emerged. Driving through the corridor, concrete facilities line the main roads, marked with names including Skybox and CloudHQ. There is none of the typical sleek, high-profile tech industry aesthetic here — the area reads far more like a quiet, unadorned industrial zone.

Big tech firms are inclined to frame the public pushback as part of a much broader social rift. Two days after the midterms, OpenAI's head of global affairs Chris Lehane wrote that data centers have become a public stand-in for widespread anxiety around affordability, unaccountable corporate power, and a general sense of losing control. This framing slots the conflict neatly into the popular culture war narrative. But after spending days on the ground in Data Center Alley, O'Donnell drew a far more specific conclusion: the core of the backlash is electricity itself.

There are only two ways to power a running data center: connect to the public utility grid, or generate power on site independently. Most data centers in Loudoun County tie into the existing public grid. O'Donnell toured a facility operated by Equinix, which is fitted with large backup diesel generators and draws its regular daily power from local utility provider Dominion Energy. A large share of Dominion's power supply comes from natural gas, which is cleaner than coal and oil but far more carbon-intensive than renewable energy. The average power capacity of local data centers hits 54 megawatts, which exceeds the total power consumption of Denver International Airport.

Elena Schlossberg, a Virginia-based anti-data-center activist, told O'Donnell that she feels like she is "banging her head against a wall" every time the industry tries to frame the debate as a culture war. The issue has never been anything but a power-related problem, she stresses. Local protests have already pushed through concrete new rules: data centers are required to cover the full cost of new transmission line construction, and cannot pass those expenses onto other utility customers. Developers are already preparing for new regulations that could see their grid power access cut off entirely during peak demand periods. Schlossberg also worries about downstream ripple effects of an overstretched grid, including data centers running diesel generators far more frequently, or Dominion expanding fossil fuel capacity at the expense of renewable energy investments.

Most new AI data centers under construction elsewhere in the U.S. are not built this way. Their massive power requirements are so large that they can only be sited in rural areas with barely any existing grid infrastructure. Locating in these areas means facilities have to bring their own on-site power supply, the so-called behind-the-meter generation model, which uses natural gas turbines paired with diesel backups for emergency use. Anthropic has reportedly agreed to spend 3.4 billion dollars on gas turbines, in what is described as the single largest power generation procurement ever made by an AI firm. Even the minimum size of a data center fit for AI training requires 300 megawatts of power. An ideal large-scale AI facility would operate at nearly 6,000 megawatts — equivalent to the total electricity consumption of the entire city of Chicago. Chicago already hosts more than 20 power plants within city limits, and dozens more outside the metro area.

Private firms generating their own power might sound like a way to reduce strain on the public grid. But power generation at this massive scale ends up sitting directly next to local residential communities. When public utilities build facilities of comparable size, local communities almost always expect to have a meaningful say in the site selection process. Today, that process is being run unilaterally by private corporations. Natural gas turbines release harmful air pollutants, and diesel generators have even worse emissions profiles. When companies rush to hit tight construction and deployment deadlines, it is extremely easy for them to act as bad, uncooperative neighbors. O'Donnell notes that Elon Musk's xAI deployed dozens of turbines for its Memphis data center, which the U.S. EPA has ruled violates air quality regulations.

The industry can improve its deal terms with local communities, raise tax contributions, hire local residents, and expand meaningful community participation, and ongoing public protests are already pushing them in that direction. But if a small town is expected to host a Disneyland, an international airport, a full-scale steel mill, and all the power plants required to run all three operations at once, it is hardly surprising that local residents feel tense and uneasy.

The backlash also includes unrelated fears over job losses, hypothetical existential risks, excessive corporate power concentration, and spread of misinformation. Many data facilities actually use far less water than the general public assumes, and high power consumption is not inherently a bad thing — most major modern quality of life improvements rely on access to large volumes of electricity. But one developer told O'Donnell that the industry internally views limited power supply as its primary bottleneck for growth, with public opposition ranking far lower down on its list of concerns. That assessment is far more specific than the vague culture war framing, and far harder to spin with standard public relations tactics.

Moving forward, new data centers that are required to generate their own power will be sited in locations with the smallest populations and least ability to organize resistance. That could be the Permian Basin, where natural gas pipeline networks are densely laid out and local populations are very sparse. It could also push development overseas. The day after the U.S. election results were released, Google announced a 15 billion dollar investment to build data centers in Malaysia. Just hours after the midterm results came out, Elon Musk posted on social media that data centers located in outer space are suddenly looking like a very appealing option.

Residents are tallying their electricity bills, while the industry is already talking about building data centers in space. That disconnect explains public frustration with data centers far better than any vague culture war narrative.