As the United States approaches midterm elections, politicians from both parties are tapping into the grassroots backlash against new data center builds.
As a nationwide protest was being planned for this weekend, Republican governors in Montana, Wyoming, and Missouri joined a White House-brokered Ratepayer Protection Pledge committing data center developers to cover their fair share of energy, water, and grid costs. New York Governor Kathy Hochul went further, signing the nation’s first statewide moratorium on new large-scale data center permits while regulators spend up to a year developing stronger ratepayer and environmental standards—the most consequential policy response yet to community backlash. Media coverage has exploded. The result: digital infrastructure is now visible, controversial, and ripe for weaponization that could hurt US leadership in AI and jeopardize the economic benefits the technology would confer to communities for generations.
The stakes of the AI race go far beyond tech
Tomorrow’s jobs, capital flows, military readiness, and economy will depend on the digital and energy infrastructure the United States builds today. This means that the United States may not lose the artificial intelligence (AI) race—and the critical advantages it confers—because its engineers fall behind China’s. It could lose because it fails to build the infrastructure AI requires—and the stakes would be hard to overstate.
Picture a middle-American manufacturing town watch a promised chip-fab cluster relocate to Malaysia after a local moratorium fight erased its head start, taking thousands of construction and engineering jobs with it. Fast-forward to 2030, when a foreign adversary’s AI-optimized command-and-logistics network can redirect an entire supply chain in hours, while our military waits on compute capacity delayed by permitting battles. These are not far-fetched scenarios; they are the plausible costs of blocking critical infrastructure.
Governments and tech companies worldwide are racing to build faster—just as they once competed to build railroads, highways, and the electric grid. They should do so purposefully so that the short- and long-term benefits are both apparent and available to all citizens, as these are not niche technology debates but decisions that will shape the economic viability of every community. And they will determine the future of AI and who leads it.
Opposition is homegrown—and externally sown
US policymakers worry about China, cyberattacks, and even the technology itself, but the greatest risk may come from growing public opposition to the very infrastructure AI requires without consideration for the long-term consequences. Recent disclosures indicate that foreign adversaries, including China, Russia, and Iran, are working to foment opposition in US communities to data centers, drive division ahead of the midterms, and undermine the United States’ technological leadership.
Keeping its edge requires an infrastructure-intensive industrial transformation comprising new data centers, new electricity generation, semiconductors, fiber networks, cooling technologies, cloud architecture, cybersecurity, and a smarter, modern grid to power it all. That physical foundation is not negotiable, and yet, it is the target of a rising opposition driven by grassroots-level resistance, short-term political motivation, and the amplification of these concerns through media.
The United States is entering the largest infrastructure buildout of the Digital Age, and while the AI race could be won in US laboratories, it could be lost in the political arena.
Public concerns about the impacts on land, water, energy, and jobs are legitimate. Many communities worry about rising electricity bills, strained water supplies, tax incentives that favor developers over residents, construction noise, land use, and a general distrust of technology companies that arrive with little explanation of what, if anything, the community will gain in return. These concerns demand empathy, dialogue, and practical solutions commensurate with the stakes.
A myopic narrative dominates public opinion
To date, focus on the technology has superseded a more important race for public opinion and responsible development that builds community trust. The public at large has not been engaged or informed enough about the long-term economic stakes. Closing that gap is critical but not the industry’s job alone—it must be a shared responsibility among government, industry, utilities, local leaders, educators, and civil society—who can step up together to lead it.
In addition to the tri-state Ratepayer Protection Pledge and New York’s one-year moratorium, several other states are considering actions that would slow data center growth. In California, voters in Monterey Park became the first to vote on a permanent ban on data centers. Another dozen states are considering a similar moratorium. In Wisconsin, community opposition resulted in the cancellation of a $12 billion data center campus. In Tennessee, communities are debating moratoriums despite $10 billion in gross domestic product growth and 60,000 new jobs from the sector.
These policy discussions are rooted in public sentiment. Recent polling by Gallup and Reuters reveals that a majority of Americans oppose having a data center built in their community. Seventy-five major projects worth more than $130 billion were delayed or canceled amid organized local opposition in the first three months of 2026, according to Fortune and Data Center Watch. Politicians are following suit, reticent to alienate voters ahead of midterms. Congress even introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act in June to require large load customers like hyperscalers bear the full costs of any necessary grid upgrades to support them.
A more compelling narrative is urgently needed to turn the tide
Based on their rising electricity bills, it is understandable that many Americans view data centers as energy-hogging buildings rather than transformative, vital investment that will underpin the nation’s ability to compete in the future economy.
What this perception should tell policymakers and tech companies is that the vision for AI is not clear or compelling enough to Americans—yet. They need to come together as a public-private ecosystem to strengthen understanding and trust alongside AI infrastructure so that AI can serve communities and their long-term interests.
The world is accelerating head-first into the next era—but the battle for AI is no longer being fought primarily in Washington, Beijing, and Silicon Valley. It is now a battle for hearts and minds that can be weaponized by foreign adversaries. If public and private stakeholders do not act now to invest in connecting with people while connecting the compute—the United States will lose the AI race.
Jeannie Salo is the CEO of Salo Strategic Advisors and Big Tent Energy.
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Image: July 11, 2026, Mesa, Arizona, USA: Construction continues on an NTT Data hyperscale data center campus in Mesa, Arizona. The state recently experienced a surge in data center development applications just before a three-year pause on new state tax incentives took effect, reflecting continued demand for AI and cloud computing infrastructure. Arizona's expansion mirrors a nationwide boom in hyperscale data center construction driven by growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud computing capacity. (Credit Image: © Eduardo Barraza/ZUMA Press Wire)