Big Tech is pouring money into local PR campaigns to win support for the data centres it needs. Opposition to the buildings is spreading across the United States. They are holding town halls, dropping tax demands and sponsoring community groups. That is according to a Bloomberg feature and a Wall Street Journal report.

The scale of the pushback is large. Local opposition blocked or delayed at least 75 data centre projects in the first three months of this year, Bloomberg reported, citing the research group Data Center Watch. Those projects were worth about $130bn. That figure approaches the total value of projects stalled in all of 2025.

The fights are spread across the country. Opposition has been strongest in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia. There, 17 projects have stalled, Bloomberg said. In Michigan alone, more than 50 communities have passed or proposed moratoriums. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now moving to repeal tax breaks for the sites.

Why people are angry

Much of the anger centres on water and energy, according to Bloomberg, which cited data from the firm Hamlet. The large, windowless buildings have become a symbol for wider worries about AI. Residents point to higher utility bills, strained water supplies and the prospect of job losses.

The opposition crosses party lines. Residents and officials in red states and swing districts are calling for pauses, Bloomberg reported. They include Texas, Mississippi and Ohio, echoing progressive figures such as Bernie Sanders. The report framed the backlash as a threat to the push by Silicon Valley and President Trump to outspend China on AI.

States have started to act. New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order in July. It pauses permits for new data centres of at least 50 megawatts for up to a year. Texas Governor Greg Abbott then froze new projects pending an audit. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an order requiring local approval before state permits.

The charm offensive

Faced with those roadblocks, the companies are changing tactics, Bloomberg reported. Meta has spent millions on television adverts showing locals working in its server farms in Altoona, Iowa. OpenAI’s Sam Altman told a crowd in Michigan that a data centre there could become “the site where cancer gets cured”.

Microsoft has made concrete concessions. The company said it would no longer seek tax breaks from communities where it builds, according to Bloomberg. Big Tech firms are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI data centres this year, which raises the stakes of any delay. It unveiled a “community-first AI infrastructure” policy in January. The policy includes a pledge to pay its own way, so that data centres do not raise local power bills.

The White House has added its own framework. Its non-binding Ratepayer Protection Pledge asks tech companies to pay for their own power supply and invest in jobs, Bloomberg said. By early August, more than 300 companies had signed.

OpenAI is applying that approach in Georgia. As part of a plan for a data centre worth more than $30bn near Savannah, it is meeting residents and has pledged to conserve water and pay its own way on power. The work needs to be done “with, of, for, and by the community”, OpenAI policy chief Chris Lehane told Bloomberg. The Journal reported that about 1,000 people attended one such open house in Effingham County.

A test case in New Mexico

Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, shows the strategy in action, Bloomberg reported. The 2.45 gigawatt facility is a centrepiece of the company’s $300bn computing deal with OpenAI. Oracle has sent mailers, donated to a Boys & Girls Club and a food pantry, and put its name on a local dinosaur-dig park.

The campaign followed anger over how the project was kept quiet. Locals only learned that Oracle and OpenAI were behind the venture after officials approved it, Bloomberg said. One resident, Daisy Maldonado, is now running for county commissioner partly on a platform of opposing it.

Oracle defended the project. It said Project Jupiter will bring investment without harming the environment, and that its use of drinking water will be similar to an office building. The company said the site has already generated almost $80mn in state and local tax revenue.

An organised opposition

The companies face a networked resistance. In Lowell Township, Michigan, residents mobilised against a project before the developer was even named, Bloomberg reported. After residents forced a public hearing to close, Microsoft revealed its involvement. It held town halls and scrapped its non-disclosure agreements and property tax breaks.

Some residents took to calling the company “Microslop”.

National groups are coordinating the fight. The Sierra Club publishes model ordinances, fact sheets and checklists, and teams with Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council to intervene in utility cases, according to Bloomberg.

In Michigan, a group called EDRA hands out opposition toolkits. “Think of it like a spiderweb that’s spread all across the state,” its founder, Marjorie Steele, told Bloomberg.

The outreach does not always work.

Near Atlanta, a group led by Steve Swope is fighting a roughly $17bn data centre planned by the developer Prologis, Bloomberg reported. After losing a rezoning vote, the group filed two motions to overturn it and set up a political action committee to unseat the commissioners who approved the project.

Prologis said its concerns were addressed and that the objection was “really a concern about data centers in general”.

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