The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived

Thomas, who won reelection last week, points to the local pushback against the proposed Prince William Digital Gateway, which would put more than 30 data centers on the edge of a national reserve located in the north of the state. A group of homeowners have challenged the project in court, and a judge voided zoning in August, which temporarily halted construction.

“The little guy finally won, which rarely happens in any industry, let alone where the Magnificent Ten play,” he says, referring to the US’s biggest tech companies. “I think that rallied people politically in Virginia.”

Thomas, like Hubbard, also says he sees a lot of his constituents concerned about how data centers will affect their electricity bill. “People are just a lot more cost-conscious,” he says. Energy bills, Thomas says “are something that was kept relatively static for a number of years.” But in Virginia, electricity load from data centers are helping to drive up utility bills, Thomas says.

Both Thomas and Hubbard are Democrats, but opposition to data centers, the Data Center Watch report stresses, has been thoroughly bipartisan. And some national Republican politicians, including Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Thomas Massie, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have begun to speak out against them.

“People you have got to pay close attention to your local city, county, and state approvals of data centers and demand your water and energy bills be protected!!!” Greene, who has criticized data center expansion for months, posted on X on November 7.

Big tech companies have to date made few public statements about pushback to data center projects. While some, like Meta, provide public-facing information on their data centers, others in the industry lean heavily on nondisclosure agreements when building new data centers, providing little to no information to communities about these projects—including which tech companies may be involved.