TOI correspondent in Washington: US President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind one of the most contentious aspects of America’s artificial-intelligence boom, risking support of his own MAGA base by warning that communities which reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor.”In a Truth Social post that came amid growing opposition across the country to resource-intensive server farms, echoes of which are now being heard in India too, Trump argued that embracing data centers would mean jobs, lower taxes and prosperity.“The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” Trump posted, adding, “The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement.”Trump’s intervention comes as the US confronts a striking paradox: the country is racing to build the physical infrastructure needed for AI and stay ahead of China just as public opposition to that infrastructure is becoming a major political force. The fight is no longer a niche zoning dispute; it is increasingly about who pays for AI, who gets its benefits, and who bears its environmental and social costs.The US is currently building hundreds of data centers, with one estimate pointing to more than 3000 operating facilities over the next decade. The biggest developers are the technology giants — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle — along with AI companies such as OpenAI and infrastructure specialists including QTS, Digital Realty, Equinix, CyrusOne and others.Training and operating frontier AI models requires enormous computing capacity, turning data centers into something closer to power-intensive industrial plants than traditional office infrastructure. While the industry maintains that data centers are the backbone of the AI economy, opponents are asking if citizens should surrender scarce water, electricity, land and tax revenue to build them.There is now growing opposition across the country to data centers, with at least 75 projects worth about $130 billion blocked or delayed in the first quarter of 2026 alone, according to Data Center Watch. A University of Pennsylvania Annenberg survey found in August that 61 per cent of Americans opposed new data centers in their communities, up from 49 per cent just four months earlier.Similar opposition is also brewing in India, with protests in Thane and in Visakhapatnam, where Google has planned a $15 billion AI data-center hub in partnership with the Adani group. The complaints are remarkably consistent: fears of higher electricity bills, water consumption, noise, air pollution, diesel backup generators, loss of farmland, tax concessions, strain on transmission networks and lack of local control.Resistance in the US is strongest in Virginia – just outside Washington DC – America’s traditional “Data Center Alley,” with major protests erupting in Prince William County, where residents have opposed proposed campuses over land use, power and environmental concerns. In Wisconsin, opposition to Meta-linked plans has become a statewide political issue. Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas have also seen local campaigns.Local activism has crossed party lines, with residents on both sides of the political divide objecting to secrecy, tax incentives, environmental effects and loss of local control. The UPenn survey shows opposition is bipartisan: 69 per cent among Democrats, 53 per cent among independents and 54 per cent among Republicans. The protests essentially pits a coalition of Big Tech and developers versus a shifting alliance of homeowners, farmers, environmentalists, and populist politicians.Trump’s intervention has therefore put him somewhat at odds with parts of his own political constituency. “We’re about to see whether President Trump can sway those voters to support them, as he’s done on many issues before,” well-known pollster Frank Luntz noted, even as many Trump supporters expressed outrage on his support for data centers on his Truth Social platform.
