In the year data centers moved from the backend to center stage

There was a time when most Americans had little knowledge about their local data center. Server farms, the invisible but important backbone of the Internet, have long been a point of interest for people outside the tech industry, not to mention an issue with particularly captivating political resonance.

Well, as of 2025, it looks like those days are officially over.

Over the past 12 months, data centers have inspired protests in dozens of states, as regional activists sought to combat America’s ever-growing computing backlog. Data Center Watch, an organization that tracks anti-data center activism, wrote that there are currently 142 different activist groups in 24 states organizing against data center developments.

Activists have a variety of concerns: the potential environmental and health impacts of these projects, the controversial ways in which artificial intelligence is being used, and, most importantly, the fact that many of the new additions to America’s energy grid may lead to higher local electricity bills.

Such a sudden populist uprising seems to be a natural response to an industry that has grown so quickly that it is now appearing in people’s backyards. In fact, as the AI ​​industry has exploded to astonishing levels, so has the cloud computing business. Recent US Census Bureau data shows that since 2021, spending on building data centers has risen by a staggering 331%. Total spending on these projects amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars. So many new data centers have been proposed in recent months that many experts believe the vast majority of them will not be built – or even possible.

This construction shows no signs of slowing down in the meantime. Major tech giants — including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon — have announced big capital spending forecasts for the new year, most of which is likely to go toward such projects.

New AI infrastructure is being pushed not just by Silicon Valley but by Washington, D.C., where the Trump administration has made AI a key item on its agenda. The Stargate project, announced in January, has paved the way for the construction of massive AI infrastructure in 2025 by heralding the supposed “remanufacturing of the United States.”

In the process of dramatically expanding itself, an industry that once received little media coverage has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight, and is now suffering from a backlash. Danny Candejas, an activist with the non-profit organization MediaJustice, has personally been involved in a number of actions against data centers, including a protest that happened in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year, where local residents came out to denounce the expansion of Colossus, a project from Elon Musk’s startup, xAI.

Candijas told TechCrunch that he meets new people every week who express interest in organizing against a data center in their community. “I don’t think this will stop anytime soon,” he added. “I think it will continue to build, we will see more wins, and more projects will be stopped.”

Evidence supporting Kandiga’s assessment is everywhere you look. Across the country, communities responded to the newly announced server farms in the same way a normal person might react to a highly contagious pandemic. In Michigan, for example, where developers are currently eyeing 16 different sites to build potential data centers, protesters recently descended on the state Capitol, saying things like: “Michiganites don’t want data centers in our yards, in our communities.” Meanwhile, in Wisconsin — another development hotspot — angry locals appear to have recently dissuaded Microsoft from using their city as the headquarters for a new 244-acre data center. In Southern California, the small city of Imperial Valley recently filed a lawsuit to overturn its county’s approval of a data center project, citing environmental concerns as its rationale.

The discontent surrounding these projects has become so intense that politicians believe they could make or break certain candidates at the ballot box. In November, it was reported that rising electricity costs — which many believe are driven by the AI ​​boom — could become a crucial issue defining the 2026 midterm elections.

“The whole connection to everyone’s rising energy bills — I think that’s what made this issue so clear to people,” Candijas told TechCrunch. “A lot of us are struggling month to month. At the same time, there’s this massive expansion of data centers…[People are wondering] Where does all that money come from? How do our local governments award subsidies and public funds to incentivize these projects, when there is so much need for them in our communities?”

In some cases, protests appear to be successful, even stopping (albeit temporarily) planned developments. Data Center Watch claims that development projects worth around $64 billion have been blocked or delayed as a result of public opposition. Candijas is certainly a believer in the idea that organized labor can stop corporations in their tracks. “All this public pressure is working,” he said, noting that he could feel “very palpable anger” over the issue.

Not surprisingly, the tech industry is fighting back. Earlier this month, Politico reported that a relatively new trade group, the National Association for Artificial Intelligence (NAIA), has been “distributing talking points to members of Congress and organizing field trips to local data centers to better educate voters about their value.” Tech companies, including Meta, are running ad campaigns to sell voters about the economic benefits of data centers, the outlet wrote. In short: The tech industry’s AI hopes are tied to building computing of epic proportions, so for now, it’s safe to say that in 2026, the server boom will continue, as will the backlash and polarization surrounding it.