Americans don't know how to fight AI. So they're fighting data centers

The data center revolt is a symptom of our political failure on AI.

Gift Demonstrators protest a data center in Tucson, Arizona, in May 2026. Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via Getty Images Marina Bolotnikova is a senior reporter for Vox’s Future Perfect section. She covers housing, transportation, and cities, factory farming and animal rights, meta-science, the future of food and agriculture, and more.On its surface, the national revolt against data centers seems simple: They are a nuisance, and people do not want them in their proverbial backyards. But I haven’t been able to let go of the idea that there must be something much deeper driving the backlash against them, and few other subjects have confounded me more than trying to figure out what to think about it.

These facilities — the massive suburban and exurban warehouses that power AI, along with much of what we do on the modern internet — spew noise, have been accused of guzzling electricity and water, and have a halo of general ugliness around them. And over the past year-and-a-half or so, many Americans have gone from barely knowing what a data center is to having fiercely held opinions about them. Seventy percent of Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll, now say they would oppose one being built in their area. The environment tops their list of concerns. They’re also disquieted by the idea of high-tech facilities buying up land from America’s farmers and ranchers. Anti-data center campaigns have swept communities across the country, producing dozens of local moratoria on their construction.