In the United States, between April and June 2026, the mobilization of local communities stalled or was postponed 45 data center projects for a total value of 68 billion dollars. This was revealed by a report from Data Center Watch, taken up by Bloomberg: the figure corresponds to over half of the major developments expected in the quarter, a figure that illustrates how strong the opposition has become in the area.
In the first quarter of 2026, 75 projects had already been stopped for 130 billion dollarsbringing the first half total to almost 200 billion dollars of frozen or postponed investments. The issue concerns 49 states out of 50 (Hawaii remains the only exception) and involves, according to the report’s estimates, 843 opposition groups active in the area.
Thirty state legislatures have introduced or adopted regulations on location, water and electricity consumption of data centers. In several cases, communities impose preventive moratoriums, even before a builder submits an application for a permit: in July there were 142 simultaneous protests in 42 states several in the space of a single weekend.
Water and electricity, the two exposed nerves
Water consumption remains the first target of protests: estimates indicate that artificial intelligence could consume up to 2,700 billion litres by 2030. Sam Altman replied that 38,000 queries on ChatGPT are equivalent to the water requirement to produce a single almond, while Microsoft claims that its new architecture consumes as much as a restaurant. In May, however, a plant drew 132 million liters of water in just over a year before a drop in pressure in the local water supply revealed the problem to residents.
On the electricity front, the projections speak of a 20% of US energy consumption absorbed by data centers by 2035. In Virginia, a plant dedicated to AI has already caused an irreversible increase in 76% of residential billsso much so as to push the state to require hyperscalers to cover the costs of the dedicated transmission infrastructure.
Meta signed an agreement with the utility Entergy Louisiana from 7 GW for the Hyperion plant, which Entergy itself claims will save money 20 billion dollars in twenty years to the other customers of the network. Not all offline solutions are convincing: Elon Musk’s Colossus 2 has come under fire for 59 gas turbines unlicensed that spilled pollutants into predominantly African-American communities in Mississippi, while Amazon’s 35-turbine gas plant was allowed to emit 33 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, making it the single largest source of CO2 in the United States.
The White House has taken a clear position in the past: President Trump has branded the opposing communities as those who “want to remain backward and poor”, also insinuating a possible role of China behind the protests. On the ground the tension has already translated into death threats and gunshots against local officials involved in decisions about new plants, as gathered by the Data Center Watch report.
Hyperscalers, for their part, are not slowing down: since 2023 they have invested further 1 trillion dollars in infrastructure, with others 745 billion of capex expected only in 2026. It is difficult to think that local protests will be able to stop a spending trajectory that analysts continue to project up to 32 trillion dollars by 2050: more than a brake, local opposition seems destined to become an additional cost to be taken into account, not an insurmountable obstacle.
