Topic
Community and market-level pushback affecting data center siting and permitting.
Local opposition stalled at least 45 US data center projects worth about $68 billion in the second quarter of 2026, Data Center Watch says. For developers, where a campus can be built is now a cost and schedule risk in its own right.
Reality
Goldman Sachs calls its US data-center outlook through 2027 largely unchanged, yet its figures cut 2027 capacity additions to 26 GW from 36 GW. The bank says local opposition has had limited effect on growth so far, a judgement the November 3 midterms will test.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
NorthPoint Development offered Hazle Township households $10,000 apiece to back its $165 million Project Hazelnut, paid only after the first building is done. The deferral means the cash costs NorthPoint nothing unless a contested power line to the campus gets built.
Reality
STL Partners estimates public opposition has delayed or cancelled about $42 billion of European data center investment, against about $77 billion in the U.S. Governments there have begun turning local objections into national planning and grid rules.
Reality
QTS, NextEra and Siemens Energy formed a Texas coalition to win local consent for data centres after nearly $200 billion of US projects were blocked in six months. For their investors, a county commission's vote now sits beside financing and equipment as something a project timeline depends on.
Reality
Campuses in Texas and Ohio are pursuing up to 27 gigawatts between them, against an average draw of about 36 gigawatts for all US data centers in 2025. For buyers of that capacity, the open budget line is the new-generation cost Indiana lawmakers want developers to share.
Reality
Executive Order 2026-05 and the GRID Standards turn permitting speed and a sales tax exemption projected to cost more than $517 million a year by FY 2030-31 into things developers must earn.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Trump is telling communities that refusing data centers will leave them poor, while Abbott and Pillen have paused approvals in their own states. That gap is where the schedule risk on a project now sits.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
SoftBank's data centre arm filed on September 1 to raise $5bn to $7bn on Nasdaq, and the price under discussion works out at about 180 times an annualized half-year revenue of $139m against $439bn of contracted backlog.
Reality