Across USA, even modest local PR firms are getting into the data center business. But instead of supporting local communities in what appears to be their dogged and growing opposition to these behemoths, these firms are now offering "community engagement" packages touting all the supposed benefits to local residents--and helping developers gain tax concessions, and navigate permitting, zoning, environmental, and other regulatory processes, with narratives, messaging, "briefings" for officials, and to be sure, lots of social media support. Although just going after this business--and you can be sure it's all on retainer--is remarkably tone deaf, what you'll hear is that it's gonna be great for all!
Yeah, not so much. Given that we can't seem to build legacy nuclear plants in the USA in under a decade, or remotely within budgets--for example, the disastrous Vogtle 3 and 4 project, and SMRs are not yet a thing--data centers that must "bring their own generation" come with a lot of baggage: massive fossil fuel flows, loud noise, enormous water use, heat sinks, huge strains on the regional grid, blights on the landscape, and industrial pollution, to say nothing of massive cost increases on "ordinary" ratepayers, but benefits for a handful of billionaire AI owners and their very wealthy shareholders.
And proponents of these hungry monstrosities are eager to get the PR help, asserting a national security angle that we're in competition with China in a battle we must win at all costs. In many American counties, the jingoistic appeal to win a contrived global competition will resonate, along with the appeal of a sizeable but very temporary wash of construction jobs they'll bring. 'Cause, once up and running, only a few onsite staffers are needed. And all those other, grossly negative attributes will remain...for decades.
Communities, local leaders, and even mainstream media are waking up to the data center scam and the harm it's inflicting across the county. In a May 10, 2026 Advance Media NY Editorial Board Op-Ed (Syracuse.com), the board wrote: "State and local governments should not grant any tax breaks for data centers. The companies financing them are hiding behind limited liability companies and high-priced PR firms. If they really need the tax breaks, they should step out of the shadows and make their case publicly. Taxpayer subsidies are better directed at housing development, not data centers." Touche.
The Atlantic Monthly gives us an inside look at one such project, Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers: "Already, the air smelled of soot, gasoline, and asphalt. Then I felt a tickle sliding up my nostrils and down into my throat, like I was getting a cold. As we approached, I heard the rumble of cranes and trucks, and then from behind a patch of trees emerged a forest of electrical towers. Finally, I saw it—a white-walled hangar, bigger than a dozen football fields, where Elon Musk intends to build a god."