Siting Is Now a Schedule Risk: 75 Data Centre Projects, $130bn, One Quarter

Local opposition blocked or delayed at least 75 data centre projects worth about $130bn in the first three months of this year, Bloomberg reported, citing the research group Data Center Watch ^[1]. That one quarter approaches the total value of projects stalled in all of 2025 ^[2], which moves community resistance out of the public-affairs budget and into the capacity plan. The arithmetic is worth sitting with. Roughly $1.7bn of announced project value per blocked or delayed site ^[20] is not a rounding error against the hundreds of billions Big Tech is spending on AI data centres this year ^[19]. Michigan and Georgia account for 17 of the stalled projects ^[3], about 23 percent of the total ^[21], and in Michigan more than 50 communities have passed or proposed moratoriums while a bipartisan group of lawmakers moves to repeal tax breaks for the sites ^[4]. The permitting layer above the townships has also shifted. New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order in July pausing permits for new data centres of at least 50 megawatts for up to a year ^[5]. Texas Governor Greg Abbott then froze new projects pending an audit ^[6]. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an order requiring local approval before state permits ^[7]. Three states, three different mechanisms, all of them capable of adding quarters to a timeline. The grievances are specific rather than ambient: water and energy, according to Bloomberg, which cited data from the firm Hamlet, with residents pointing to higher utility bills, strained water supplies and the prospect of job losses ^[8]. The opposition crosses party lines, with calls for pauses in Texas, Mississippi and Ohio echoing progressive figures such as Bernie Sanders ^[9]. In Lowell Township, Michigan, residents organised against a project before the developer had even been named ^[18]. The industry response so far is a mix of persuasion and concession. Meta has spent millions on television adverts showing locals working in its server farms in Altoona, Iowa ^[10], and OpenAI's Sam Altman told a Michigan crowd that a data centre there could become "the site where cancer gets cured" ^[11]. Microsoft has gone further and given something up: it said it would no longer seek tax breaks from communities where it builds, part of a "community-first AI infrastructure" policy unveiled in January that includes a pledge to pay its own way so that data centres do not raise local power bills ^[12]. The White House's non-binding Ratepayer Protection Pledge asks companies to fund their own power supply and invest in jobs; more than 300 had signed by early August ^[13]. Oracle's Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, shows what late engagement costs. The 2.45 gigawatt site is a centrepiece of the company's $300bn computing deal with OpenAI ^[15], but locals only learned Oracle and OpenAI were behind the venture after officials approved it ^[16]. Mailers, donations to a Boys and Girls Club and a food pantry, and a name on a local dinosaur-dig park followed ^[15]. Oracle says the project will bring investment without environmental harm, that its drinking water use will be similar to an office building's, and that the site has already generated almost $80mn in state and local tax revenue ^[17]. One resident, Daisy Maldonado, is running for county commissioner partly on opposing it ^[16]. OpenAI appears to have absorbed the lesson. For a data centre worth more than $30bn near Savannah, Georgia, it is meeting residents and has pledged to conserve water and pay its own way on power, with policy chief Chris Lehane telling Bloomberg the work must be done "with, of, for, and by the community" ^[14]. The Wall Street Journal reported about 1,000 people attended one open house in Effingham County ^[14].