A major developer is offering $10,000 to every family in a small Pennsylvania town if they don’t object to the construction of a mega data center project. Nevertheless, local advocates are standing their ground, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
NorthPoint Development wants to build a major data center complex on 1,300 acres of land in Hazle Township near Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Faced with growing local opposition, the developer found a potential solution in a $45 million total payout to the residents of the community, plus an additional $120 million investment in the community. Even though that amount could buy months of groceries or rent, many residents told the Journal that they are willing to refuse the payout.
The artificial intelligence industry is driving an unprecedented buildout of data centers across the world. In the United States, this infrastructure buildout is receiving significant bipartisan backlash. Surveys show dramatically souring public opinion, not just against the mega-structures, but also against artificial intelligence overall, as the public harbors existential fears over the technology’s impact on the economy or security. Nearly nine in 10 Americans surveyed in a recent CNN poll reported being more concerned than excited about both the rapid surge in data center construction and the possibility of AI surpassing human intelligence. Though the backlash seems universal among demographic groups, a previous Heatmap survey found particular opposition to data centers among rural voters, Democrats, and young people.
Local opposition is growing so strong that an average of more than two new anti-data center advocacy groups were created per day in the past three months, according to the Data Center Opposition Report. Estimated membership in such groups is now at over 640,000 people, an eightfold increase since December.
Detractors voice a wide range of worries, spanning potentially dwindling food sources as data center developers buy up agricultural land to higher asthma and cancer rates due to air pollution from the gas turbines that power the projects.
In Hazle Township, locals mainly fear the intensity of the expected noise pollution and worry that the data center projects will tank property values.
“$10,000 doesn’t match how much it’s going to tank my property value,” a retired teacher told the WSJ, citing the years of impending noise pollution.
The backlash has translated into notable political progress too, as numerous localities start enacting temporary data center moratoriums. Hazle Township is also on that list. In June, Township supervisors approved a 180-day moratorium on data center construction, in an effort to give Hazle time to update its zoning laws.
The issue is proving to be a thorn in the AI industry’s side. Some Wall Street investors have been voicing concerns that the AI industry won’t be able to stick to growth targets amidst the growing data center backlash, according to a recent New York Times report. That fear is reportedly worsened by delayed IPO projections from data center developers like SB Energy, which is helming OpenAI’s major data center project in Ohio.
While some developers, like NorthPoint Development, hope to find the solution to their problem in payouts, others in the AI industry are going on offense. According to an Axios report from Monday, private equity firm Blackstone and AI giant OpenAI are among the organizations backing a new group called the American Infrastructure Alliance, which will partner with local politicians to create standards for data centers, hoping to ward off future moratoriums. The group will reportedly begin campaigns next year in Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
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