"Across the country, data center demand and construction have been skyrocketing throughout 2025. And so has local opposition to those projects. From Indiana (where a developer withdrew its application to build a data center on more than 700 acres of farmland after local opposition) to Georgia (where now at least eight municipalities have passed moratoriums on data center development), residents and politicians are pushing back against the water- and energy-hungry sites."
"Between late March through June of this year alone, 20 data center projects, representing about $98 billion in investments, were blocked or delayed in the United States, according to a new report from Data Center Watch, a project from the AI security and intelligence firm 10a Labs. That number is higher than all of the data center disruptions the research group had tracked in the two years prior to its most recent report."
"Data Center Watch began keeping tabs on this trend in 2023, and released its first report earlier this year, covering 2023 through the first quarter of 2025. In that time frame, 16 projects, worth $64 billion, were blocked or delayed. Though a project may be cancelled for myriad reasons, these were cases where local opposition was reported to have played some role in the decision."
Data center demand and construction surged across the United States in 2025, coinciding with rising local opposition. Residents and politicians opposed projects from Indiana to Georgia over concerns about water and energy consumption. Between late March and June 2025, 20 data center projects representing about $98 billion in investments were blocked or delayed. Data Center Watch tracked 16 projects worth $64 billion blocked or delayed from 2023 through Q1 2025. Local opposition was reported to have played some role in many cancellations. Second-quarter 2025 opposition surged 125%, and the growth in projects is linked to AI power needs.
Read at Fast Company
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