Datacenter Protests Center on How Facilities Are Built

The grassroots movement against U.S. datacenter buildouts is growing. On July 14, New York State declared a one-year moratorium on datacenter projects of over 50 megawatts. And a series of over 140 nationwide protests against datacenter incursion into U.S. communities erupted on Saturday, July 18, 2026.

At issue are the water and power needed to supply AI datacenters, which will impact residents’ utility bills and access to basic resources. Protestors also object to noise, air pollution, and the general disruption datacenters bring.

Many also think the approval process for building datacenters takes place without their input or consideration of their concerns. Often, the hyperscalers deploy nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with local governments during the initial planning phases. Microsoft has declared that it would no longer engage in the practice.

Also unfair, objectors claim, are tax breaks given to companies such as AWS, Google, Meta, Microsoft, SpaceXAI, and CoreWeave. Why should companies worth over $1 trillion, they say, be entitled to walk off with millions in tax exemptions?

A Moratorium and Coordinated Protests

New York’s moratorium on datacenter buildouts is significant for being the first such effort in the U.S. But it comes amid growing dissatisfaction with the sheer size of datacenter buildouts nationwide, and the way they are being implemented.

“The bottom line is progress shouldn’t arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted water supply, or noise pollution,” said N.Y. Governor Kathy Hochul in announcing the moratorium bill.

As noted, the approval process is also targeted. This past weekend’s coordinated protests—the first national effort to demonstrate against AI datacenter—was organized by Humans First, a self-professed conservative group. The nonprofit is headed by Amy Kremer, a MAGA proponent and outspoken supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump who believes that AI buildouts pose a major threat to Americans. The Humans First site states:

“AI data centers are ground zero for Big AI imposing on our lives. The unaccountable build out of data centers, with no say from communities and significant local impacts, is an unacceptable infringement on our liberty.”

Kremer’s group doesn’t support moratoriums on datacenters, such as the one imposed in New York, though she told Reuters the anti-AI datacenter movement is nonpartisan. The Humans First site states:

“We do not support a national data center moratorium, or even state moratoria, but each community must be able to decide what sort of life they want for themselves, and whether or not to have a data center built in them.”

Leading Flashpoints

This weekend’s protests included multiple events in states where datacenter buildouts have been prominent. Following is a summary of where some protests were concentrated, along with information on prominent datacenter projects in those locations:

Texas: 18 protests. The state is home to Meta’s $10-billion-plus, 1-GW AI Mega-Campus in El Paso, set for completion by 2029; Google’s $40 billion investment through 2027; a 2-GW expansion of datacenter facilities by Microsoft in Pecos, West Texas, in cooperation with Chevron for natural -gas power. There is an assortment of other Texas hyperscaler datacenter locations.

Georgia: 11 protests. AWS in 2025 expanded its datacenter plans in the state by $11 billion. Microsoft has or plans to have multiple datacenter sites in the Atlanta area. Google too has a growing roster of facilities in Georgia. Meta’s datacenter in Newton County has been blamed for guzzling water from local wells.

California: 8 protests. Google has been accused of “hiding” plans for a datacenter in San Jose. The company also has plans for a $10-billion project in southern Calif. Also in San Jose, Microsoft is building a 48-MW datacenter on the site of a former homeless encampment.

A Colossal Flashpoint

Interestingly, the state of Tennessee had just one protest this past weekend, though Elon Musk’s Colossus datacenters in Memphis have been a flashpoint in the struggle against the unwanted consequences of datacenter construction. Residents in Memphis have complained of noise and gas-fired emissions, and some groups have filed lawsuits.

Regarding the Colossus facilities, Jigar Shah, former director of the U.S. Department of Energy loan program office, recently told CNBC:

“When you think about what precedent Colossus has set, it hasn’t been a great one. It certainly is a case study for what not to do in most of the rest of the country. But from a capitalist standpoint, they got rewarded.”

How Datacenters Are Built at Issue

All objections to U.S. datacenters appear to center on how datacenters are built, both physically and in terms of planning. Ones constructed without adequate community involvement are targets for objections. Those that rely on water cooling, fracking, and take up vast swaths of land are under pressure from local communities.

"You think this is pressure? Wait 'til there's no water pressure," stated a protestor’s sign this past weekend in Kenilworth, N.J. In that small municipality, CoreWeave plans a 400,000-square-foot, 250-MW datacenter priced at $1.8 billion.

Ultimately, datacenter construction will have to bow to some pressure from local residents, though how that happens will depend largely on how seriously each company takes community objections. Microsoft’s vow to stop using NDAs represents one side of how to deal with the issue, the current administration’s actions in defense of Musk’s Colossus another.

Futuriom Take: Datacenter buildouts meet objection mainly over how they are implemented. You should expect the populist uprising to continue, as it touches on key political flashpoints and has been embraced as a campaign issue for the U.S. midterms—by all political parties (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents). Expect some changes in the U.S., but no dramatic backpeddling on the part of hyperscaler datacenter builders.