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Most Americans say "not in my backyard" to AI data centers
- mrhottakes 3mo agoThey're just awful to live near; the folks that are clamoring for more cheap tokens should try moving in next door to the token factory.
- WarmWash 3mo agoThere is a study from ASU that found they are awful to live within....1200ft of.
- Aurornis 3mo agoThey probably would be awful to have a house next to, but which if the hyperscale data center proposals are near residential areas? The really large data centers have to go into areas with a lot of land and utility connections. These are usually zoned commercial or industrial already.
- throw7 3mo agoI heard about one in northern virginia which seems to be the front lines in this debate. It has onsite power generation which seems to be going 24/7 which is positively awful if you have to live next to that.
- ipython 3mo agoHere's three links to get you started. https://virginiamercury.com/2026/06/29/virginias-romance-with-data-centers-has-cooled-but-nobody-benefits-if-theres-a-full-breakup/ https://virginiamercury.com/2026/06/29/virginias-romance-wit... https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2025/0320/data-center-alley-power-lines-farmland https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2025/0320/data-center-... https://www.insidenova.com/news/loudoun/report-ashburn-residents-being-offered-4m-per-acre-to-sell-to-data-center-developers/article_f35fe52d-6f85-4aab-af62-b1d3ce504791.html https://www.insidenova.com/news/loudoun/report-ashburn-resid...
- pixelatedindex 3mo agoAmerica is so massive, these trillion dollar companies can surely build these out in the boonies with very few people around? ETA: I would rather no data centers be built, but my point is if we have to, let’s minimize the number of people who are affected. Offer to move them if need be.
- lokar 3mo agoI wonder the same thing. It could be that getting transition grid interconnects and redundant fiber paths is much faster in more suburban areas vs rural areas.
- pixelatedindex 3mo agoA lot of the big companies are massively allergic to building infrastructure, even when they get government grants to do it. Look at how badly the broadband rollout was bungled. Shot their own foot at this point.
- lokar 3mo agoWhen I was at Google they arranged to have this stuff built out. But it took a few years each time.
- dieselgate 3mo agoEven then they can wind up in the proverbial backyard. I don't know much about data center staffing needs and zoning laws but those would seem relevant spatial constraints and considerations.
- yoyohello13 3mo agoI propose we build one under Sam Altman's house.
- aqme28 3mo agoI agree with you, but even then it's still going to be someone's backyard
- Diogenesian 3mo agoIt seems downright dishonest to focus so much on Loudon County VA, which is DC's major tech hub and has the highest median income of any county in the US. It is definitely dishonest to not mention any demographic or historical details.
- chasd00 3mo agoNo one ever cared about DCs before now. I think there’s a lot of social media influence from nation state competitors going on to try and slow SOTA development in the US. Ironically, There’s enough issues with the DC buildout going on that even with 100% public opinion support it would still be significantly delayed. The behind the meter power generation isn’t going well. There’s only so many gas fired turbines on the market. And connecting a DC to an established grid isn’t like clicking a button in AWS no matter how much money you have.
- nixon_why69 3mo agoI think its a proxy for general populist sentiment. "These AI people are getting rich selling unicorn farts while I'm on the same pay and everything is more expensive, fuck them".
- forgetfreeman 3mo agoDCs have a tendency to destabilize the local grid and drive up grid rates and have ridiculous water consumption requirements, both largely externalized to the surrounding community, so it's more a matter of basic self-defense than any notional populist agenda.
- linkjuice4all 3mo agoIt’s more than one thing. Yes there’s definitely some populism and maybe some astroturfing from outside groups - but actual electricity costs are going up and the average consumer can’t really get anymore efficient, so they’re indirectly subsidizing this stuff. Computers and related hardware have gone up in price. And then you’ve got all of the “AI layoffs” that also result in real-world pain. Ignore at your own peril.
- AuthAuth 3mo agoAmerican electricity costs a very low. What they've gone up is nothing its a drop in the bucket compared to the damage from the tariffs and middle east war. Populists settle on this issue because its malicious. They are Accelerationists
- 21asdffdsa12 3mo ago.. and are completely ignored. The mighty nimby seems to be very nimble as soon as economic interests are involved. Very strange.. i thought he was the mighty preventer of all things changing. Especially the plotholes.. eh potholes and buses and rail..
- sabujp 3mo agomost americans say not in my backyard to more housing in their backyard too, but i digress.
- everdrive 3mo agoThe whole world is California, and the most important thing we can do is pack more and more people into the same space. People from here, people from there. We want more crowdedness, and everyhing that comes with it: crime, noise, pollution, lack of social cohesion. Everything. Every place must be like this, and everything must grow forever.
- WarmWash 3mo agoNegatives acknowledged, there are huge efficiency upsides to dense human living. Everything becomes smoother, faster, less wasteful. You get a society that leverages economies of scale for everything.
- AllegedAlec 3mo agoWe could also fit more people in if you crushed everyone, dehydrated them and stored they remains in huge compressed cubes. Efficiency is not all we want
- ryandrake 3mo agoIn some areas, density is appropriate, and in some areas it's not. I wish we could talk about housing density and "build more housing" as if there was not one universal solution that worked everywhere and for everyone. Dense urban living is not appropriate in a rural or suburban town. Single family homes are not appropriate in a high-demand urban area. Different people want different things, too. No matter how efficient and good for the environment it is, I don't want to live in a concrete honeycomb in the middle of a loud city.
- WarmWash 3mo agoThis is a theoretical ideal, where we ignore people's desire to own large tracts of land and live in quiet places. A mega-city where all the humans human, and then massive tracts of untouched wilderness shy of any industry that has to be there. This is also why communist countries had stuff like dense housing in deeply rural areas, and why most people were shuffled into cities. Big houses and properties do nothing for the state and just encumber society. Way easier if everyone just lives in their tightly packed central shoe box.
- gegtik 3mo agoUnbelievable. What's next, NIMBYs for sewage and effluent? Where does it end exactly?
- whatever1 3mo agoYou definitely do not want a sewage treatment plant in your backyard. But hey, you got a cheaper home price so that the rich guys can pump their crap to your backyard from miles away.
- JuniperMesos 3mo agoYou also really don't want ideological NIMBYs protesting against sewage treatment plant construction and claiming that sewage treatment plants are something that only benefit the wealthy.
- whatever1 3mo agoThey benefit everyone but I have never seen one in a rich neighborhood. So the rich are exercising NIMBY.
- Aurornis 3mo agoI agree that I don’t want a data center in my backyard either. What’s missing from this strange conversation is discussion about how many data center proposals are near residential areas. I tried to look for one in my state and a few surrounding areas and couldn’t find any. There was an amusing story about how data center protestors had to organize expensive bus trips to get the protesters out to the data center site because it was so remote. There was another story about a small town without any major electricity or communication infrastructure coming together to impose a moratorium on data center construction. There were no plans to build data centers in their small town and no reason to consider it at all, but they felt so threatened that they needed to convene and put on a big show about banning it. The social phenomenon of the data center construction protest movement is really fascinating. My assumption is that it will run its course and then be mostly dropped when the next current thing comes along. There are some actual concerns about using natural gas instead of trying to utilize the optimal power sources or locations, but they’re mostly overshadowed by bogeyman complaints like thinking that a data center is going to end up in your backyard or water consumption that is negligible compared to golf courses and swimming pools.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- yoyohello13 3mo agoMy take is that people feel powerless to really do anything against these massive tech companies. This is the only tangible way they can fight back.
- ryandrake 3mo agoYea, there's probably not one single issue that people are fed up with, but datacenters have become lightning rods that represent big tech's disproportionate power over us, job-displacing AI, and are a visible example of how municipalities that we elect--serve and prioritize companies from out of town over their voters.
- Aurornis 3mo agoI might believe that if the protests weren't being organized on Facebook and then posted to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. It's more like garbage dumps. People don't want to moderate their production of garbage, they just don't want any consequences of it to be too close to their house.
- redlewel 3mo agoI think this is because the demand is so extreme for datacenters now that companies are building them in a manner that disrupts the environment around them. The newer ones are using on-site generators that are insanely loud and require multiples more power than datacenters have historically needed. For a rack with traditional servers with just RAM/CPU/Drives, 5kW is sufficient in most cases. When you have racks that are full of 4U GPU systems that pull 3-6kW each, the power requirements per rack shoot up to 60kW+(with whole rack setups blowing past 100kW). So an AI datacenter requires over 20x the power compared to what they needed in the past. This either strains the power grid near the DC or they need to create on-site power to fulfill demand, which has noise and other concerns. I work near a datacenter and you can't hear significant noise from the outside, maybe a slight humming sound but quieter than traffic. This is a DC that has been around for over a decade and uses power from the grid since most of the loads are non-GPU based.
- ransom1538 3mo agoLol. A data center is no more than a industrial bread bakery (oddly specific i know). The entire anti-data US center is ran by China. EG. You can run a rack of servers in your closet. China is doing a great job.
- trollbridge 3mo agoAre you sure about that? I can't think of any bread bakeries pulling 2.2 gigawatts, which is us-east-1 pulls.
- cpburns2009 3mo agoIf you're complaining about us-east-1, you either moved into its backyard or didn't know it existed there for 20 years.
- dylan604 3mo agoDon't think there was a complaint as you're interpreting. It was just an example of known power usage.
- grim_io 3mo agoYour dad's data centers are very different to the new GPU focused beasts. The AI data centers consume a lot more power, and thus generate a lot more heat(equals cooling noise) per square meter. This is the reason why it's a new problem right now. Edit: autocorrect used breasts instead of beasts.
- add-sub-mul-div 3mo agoThere's also a lot of people lashing out without knowing anything about data centers because they think AI is loser shit, and data centers have become a rallying point.
- maerF0x0 3mo agoI hear and understand those, but why isn't it a regulation or requirements issue? Ambient noise must be contained, excess heat must be mitigated, free hot water must be provided to nearby buildings. etc. Also this is a city's opportunity to do something like assess penalty tax points. (ie, datacenter usage tax, just like we do to hotels)
- christina97 3mo agoBecause the people in charge of site picking also shop for low regulation environments.
- maerF0x0 3mo agoisn't that their freedom to? And the right/freedom of those who democratically created the low regulation environment? I do not understand this idea that someone from one place should have their preferences taking precedence the preferences, rights and freedoms of folks who actually live in another place. The main caveat being the boundary lines, but i think that's very much an edge case.
- AngryData 3mo agoAnd it is the citizen's freedom to say they don't want it, the same as pig farms and oil refineries trying to build next door to them.
- everyone 3mo agoNot on my planet, burn them all down!
- 1970-01-01 3mo agoOk, then how about above? Elon and friends want to launch them all into orbit.
- xnx 3mo agoAlso: Most Americans wouldn't know if an AI datacenter was already in their backyard
- mindcandy 3mo agoI find what people want from the data center build-out is pretty reasonable: 1. Don't build loud machines across the street from someone's house. 2. Don't drive up water/electricity bills by pulling from the municipal grid. 3. Don't burn the earth with CO2. 4. Don't facilitate techno-fascist surveillance. 5. Pay a lot of taxes. But, when I see people complain about data centers, I usually see a spiral of rage-bait based on mis-framing, conjecture and repeating stuff others simply made up to get everyone mad. The online discussion tone is reaching a shrieking pink-froth level. What I'm finding in my lazy research on the subject is that recent and planned datacenters 1. Are exceedingly rarely built where anyone can hear them. But, occasionally are. Thus ragebait articles. 2. Pull from muni grids for small scale centers. But, the hyperscalers are independent. 3. Hyperscalers are burning way too much natural gas. That's bad. But, not using nearly as much water as people think. That's good. 4. Techno-fascist surveillance doesn't need 1000s of datacenters. Just a handful off in the corner is plenty. 5. Datacenters usually are paying a lot of taxes. I think this drives the majority of the push from politicians. And, there's a minority from corruption. Frankly, the biggest issue folks should be pushing for is to require hyperscalers build out solar power instead of natural gas. That will be a hard fight because it requires more up-front time and investment. From there, ensuring small scale centers don't affect people's bills is a good fight. But, passing laws to ban datacenters seems performative compared to passing laws to regulate their power and water impact.
- nemomarx 3mo agoJust require them to also pay for a new local power plant with the capacity to cover them before they get building permits, honestly. Maybe say they can't qualify for tax breaks too?
- tsunamifury 3mo agoThat would slow the expansion, its cheaper and easier and faster to just steal power from the local communities and then gaslight them.
- loudmax 3mo agoAbsolutely this. If you think about different types of objections to nearby data centers and do some pretty minimal research, you come up with a reasonable set of solutions that most people would agree on. That's not what people are doing though. People are genuinely afraid for the future, and much of the data center backlash is driven by emotion. You can see this reflected in populist political movements. People have a (well-founded) sense that those in power don't have their interests in mind and they're lashing out without much thought.
- maerF0x0 3mo agoIMO NIMB should be illegal, so long as the builder meets standards. Maybe those standards should rise to include ambient noise requirements, heat dissipation, capital contributions to water/electricity supply, additional tax burden points (for land use without, maybe?). But I also feel there needs to be an assertion that if you own the land it's your property and you're free to do most things with it, safely and politely. This is about property rights and freedoms.
- mikestew 3mo agoThis is about property rights and freedoms. Your property rights stop where my ears are. Or I have the freedom to not listen to your gas turbine. Or however one wishes to flip that on its head. Whether you own the property or not, that property isn’t in a vacuum.
- paulzack 3mo ago[dead]
- maerF0x0 3mo agoI agree that Citizens United needs to go, let's prioritize our efforts to solve root issues instead of tire ourselves trimming weeds that pop up.
- maerF0x0 3mo agoThat is all covered by my point about regulations rising to the task. Did you read the whole comment? The point is you should be allowed to have a gas turbine (or whatever generator meets the requirements), if it meets emissions, noise, and heat regulations.
- mikestew 3mo agoYeah, I read your comment. IMO NIMB should be illegal, so long as… And if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hops. But there are examples of data centers being approved with minimal public comment, if any. Musk’s data center in Memphis is frequently trotted out, and for good reason. When the “as long as” part takes place, we can discuss the legality of NIMBY.
- adamrezich 3mo agoThe other day I was talking with two friends—one programmer, one musician, both of fairly conservative political persuasion—and the topic of “AI data centers” came up. I said something to the effect of, “y'know, all that talk about how they just use all up all the water from wherever they're built is total propaganda nonsense, right?” and both were genuinely taken aback by this statement. As far as they were concerned, “AI data centers” were something a Captain Planet villain would build, just absolute ecological disasters, inherently. I'm relatively neutral when it comes to this stuff but man, the propaganda against “AI data centers” really works!
- 1970-01-01 3mo agoYour two friends are factually correct. You somehow misinterpret how much water they consume. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-water-usage
- adamrezich 3mo agoThe energy grid use seems far more worrisome than water use. Why would anyone build an AI data center in a specifically “water-stressed region”?
- 1970-01-01 3mo agoA: Because they can get away with it.
- adamrezich 3mo ago[flagged]
- 1970-01-01 3mo agoI don't know what agenda you're going with, but it isn't reality. They're destroying water tables. I'll leave this link here for you to read if you're brave enough to step outside your Captain Planet cartoon narrative and have an actual look at the water consumption problem. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-data/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-impacts-data-cent... Or if you prefer; a much deeper non-vibecoded, scientific source with lots of citations: https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Centers-Impact-Global-Resources/dp/B0H8FTW3TZ https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Centers-Impact-Global-Resource...
- steveBK123 3mo agoTBF, Americans say "NIMBY" to everything
- allknowingfrog 3mo agoIt's a long-standing tradition. Our forefathers famously said "NIMBY" to taxation without representation.
- epolanski 3mo agoAnother issue is that they bring very low to no jobs to locals besides some initial construction work.
- dfee 3mo agoAs Covered in the Hit TV Series Pied Piper, Season 1 (2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNi0p7YtmyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNi0p7YtmyY
- BoggleOhYeah 3mo agoAnd the owner class has already trotted out the old Red Scare “If you don’t like datacenters, you’re just doing what China wants” bullshit has a defense.
- holbrad 3mo agoI mean it's absolutely true that China is loving the American AI backlash and is fueling it. How purposely they are doing this is unclear, but they have the motive and means. Let your biggest rival shoot themselves in the foot over the most important technology potentially ever, is a great strategy.
- concraper 3mo agodual use them into super low latency esports stadiums and let's see how principled people really are
- HDBaseT 3mo agoI don't get the connection? The vast population has no care for eSports, yet known "esports stadiums". I'm not even sure what an 'eSport Stadium" is, most major esports events are held out of "traditional" venues.
- whalesalad 3mo agoI would flip my bitch switch if a datacenter was stood up near me, where I could hear it. I am on 5 acres in rural Michigan surrounded by peace and quiet. I specifically came here for this reason. At the same time, I understand that we need datacenters. And tbh, Michigan is under-served in this space (ex, most of my queries thru the Cloudflare network have to go to Chicago first), and I wish we had more. But not close to residential areas. Not on top of valuable farmland. My wacky idea was that datacenters should be built on EPA superfund sites. It becomes a win-win. Datacenter gets land that humans cannot occupy, helps/funds partial cleanup, slaps a big ass concrete building down on top of the rest of the mess and kills two birds with one stone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites Also thoughts of mine recently: why are we not doing subterranean datacenters, why are we not doing tall/skinny skyscraper like datacenters (versus enormous sprawling warehouse-style).
- inkcapmushroom 3mo ago>Also thoughts of mine recently: why are we not doing subterranean datacenters, why are we not doing tall/skinny skyscraper like datacenters (versus enormous sprawling warehouse-style). It's cheaper this way.
- f33d5173 3mo agoOh yeah right, underground data centers. What are you going to say next, data centers in space? Be real.
- whalesalad 3mo agoGeothermal heating/cooling exists because deep down in the soil temperatures are fairly constant. And the earth is a fantastic insulator both in temperature and sound. Aside from the cost of digging a giant hole, there really is no reason not to be doing this.
- quickthrowman 3mo ago> Also thoughts of mine recently: why are we not doing subterranean datacenters, why are we not doing tall/skinny skyscraper like datacenters (versus enormous sprawling warehouse-style). Because it costs an order of magnitude more money to build underground or build a skyscraper than it does it build a precast concrete tilt-up warehouse. You can build a single story warehouse building with as large of a floor plate as you want, it could be hundreds of square miles if you didn’t need any utilities inside of it. Obviously you do need utilities which limit the overall building size because of things like voltage drop, pump sizing, etc. Excavating that much earth, building a concrete underground structure, and then covering it, or erecting a steel and concrete tower is much more work than having precast wall sections shipped in from the prefab plant which are then tilted into place with cranes and secured to the concrete slab foundation.
- NohatCoder 3mo agoFirst thing missing from this "article" is a number indicating how many people don't want AI datacentres anywhere. You can't claim that someone is a NIMBY if their stance is that the damned thing shouldn't be built anywhere.
- socalgal2 3mo agoMost Americans say "not in my backyard" to everything I'm not saying they should want a data center in their backyard but headline wise "not in my backyard" is true of almost everything.
- foco_tubi 3mo agoLuckily, at least public opinion toward housing and zoning density is inching towards a YIMBY majority.
- aschla 3mo agoThe datacenter outrage is mislabeled. It's actually zoning outrage, caused by local governments that aren't taking their citizen's concerns seriously. It just so happens that datacenters are the hottest (no pun intended) industrial construction option right now.
- Casteil 3mo agoThere's more to it than that. They're not just obnoxious to exist in the vicinity of, they also drive up local energy prices.
- caruasdo 3mo agoThey have to put up with noise in their homes, that's very bad.
- mattertoast 3mo agoSimple, make it legally required that all new datacenters being built by <LLM_COMPANY> is built in the literal backyard of the primary residence of the children of the Csuites of said <LLM_COMPANY>. Everyone should be in support of this idea. Everyone else gets to be free from datacenter pollution, and the Csuites get their datacenters. Win win.
- hirpslop 3mo agoChatGPT estimates for $300,000 I can build a 10x12 datacenter in my backyard with an operating breakeven at 29% utilization and 489 year capital payback. No thanks, not in my back yard.
- sourcecodeplz 3mo agobut what thing would most Americans say "yes! build this in my backyard"?>
- titanomachy 3mo agoA park, a public recreation centre, an elementary school, a cute coffee shop… You know, human stuff.
- I-M-S 3mo agoAll these things have been vehemently opposed by NIMBYs: 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapleRidge/comments/1ewgim0/maple_ridge_council_gets_petition_against_hammond/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.reddit.com/r/MapleRidge/comments/1ewgim0/maple_r... 2. https://nationalpost.com/life/the-important-questions-is-it-wrong-to-object-to-a-warming-centre-opening-in-your-neighbourhood https://nationalpost.com/life/the-important-questions-is-it-... 3. https://jeremyl.substack.com/p/nimbytales-stop-the-sound-of-children https://jeremyl.substack.com/p/nimbytales-stop-the-sound-of-... 4. https://torontolife.com/city/this-corner-store-owner-spent-years-fighting-the-city-to-serve-coffee/ https://torontolife.com/city/this-corner-store-owner-spent-y...
- titanomachy 3mo agoI don’t think any of these examples represent _successful_ opposition, though. Except maybe the warming center for homeless people? I can’t tell if it got built or not. These examples basically amount to “some people didn’t like this”, which doesn’t mean that the balance of public opinion wasn’t favourable. Unanimous support is too high a bar.
- I-M-S 3mo agoA handful of vocal voices can delay a project, raise its cost, and make it untenable.
- thelastgallon 3mo ago
- CodeWriter23 3mo agoMusk has is it right. Terafab and orbital data center pods.
- semiinfinitely 3mo agoI guess we'll just have to put them in space then
- sharts 3mo agoAnd companies grease the levers of power to not care what most Americans say. It is the American way.
- duxup 3mo agoWe built data centers for decades without issue. One I used to service frequently is actually surrounded by a large area of green-space, trees, marsh area, wildlife. The houses that border it are highly desirable as you effectively have an extension of a massive yard and great views relative to the suburban area surrounding it. Somehow things changed and it's a bit surreal.
- NohatCoder 3mo agoThe power density has been steadily increasing over the years, and then going from CPU to GPU makes it even bigger. This wouldn't be such a big issue if they actually took the time to build the infrastructure. But nobody has time, so it is gas turbines and evaporative cooling, and that makes a horrible neighbour.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- thelastgallon 3mo ago100% of electricity used for GPU/CPU is converted to heat. Why not use it for district heating next to cold cities (MidWest of North America, Europe)? Use it for desalination plants in middle east?