The real reason people hate AI data centers so much

When I shared my predictions for AI in 2026 earlier this year, I snuck in a one-sentence nugget that turned out to be surprisingly prescient: “In 2026, I expect a populist backlash against the fact that data centers’ voracious energy demands are raising electricity rates for everyday people.” I was right to flag the problem. But even as an AI expert, I failed to predict its scope. People hate AI data centers. They’ve been blamed for high electric bills, but also air pollution, odd humming noises, water scarcity, fiscal decline, and much else. To be sure, plunking a 300,000-square-foot building filled with power-hungry servers in the middle of a community comes with costs and challenges. But the national uproar over data centers reflects a much deeper anger. AI companies ignore it at their peril. In my backyard As a journalist, I only fully understood the popular outrage around AI centers when I wrote a story about one coming to my own backyard in the San Francisco Bay Area. That data center—which has already been approved by the local municipality—will take over a former golf course. At around 347,000 square feet, it’s big, but nowhere near the massive scale of facilities in the Midwest, which can top 1 million square feet. Shovels haven’t even hit the earth on the project, but locals are already up in arms. They’ve flooded local city council meetings with protestors and gathered more than 18,000 signatures opposing the new building. A social media post I wrote about my story has received 44,000 views and 100-plus comments. Most of the concerns are familiar ones, echoing criticisms occurring all around the country. In a time when energy is already blindingly expensive, many Americans worry that data centers will raise their utility bills. Many data centers have massive diesel generators, intended to keep the servers humming if the local power grid goes down. Lots of people worry that those generators will belch smog and cause health issues. The more environmentally