Article URL: https://jasmi.news/p/no-data-centers-in-my-backyard Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49180901 Points: 12 # Comments: 9

Driving in Wisconsin feels like cruising through Eden. It is unimaginably green given the heat-wave summer. There are fields of corn and clover blossoms and Queen Anne’s lace; in the temperate evenings, fireflies trace and weave star-trails between cottonwood trunks. Everyone we meet is generous, warmhearted, ready to show us the meaning of “Midwestern nice” one free beer at a time. Data centers are the most visible, physical manifestations of the AI boom. For a technology that we think of as immaterial, existing only in “the cloud,” a hyperscale data center—often spanning hundreds of acres of land—is impossible to ignore. Inside these behemoths live the chips and servers that train new AI models and process user queries from apps like ChatGPT. To perform such complex calculations at lightning-fast speed, data centers require an enormous amount of electricity, so they often come ensconced in a web of new transmission lines. Data centers don’t look cyberpunk, solarpunk, or otherwise inspiringly futuristic. They are just greige. When I visited DC in February to start researching the brewing AI backlash, I found that the top two uniting issues were kids’ safety and data centers.1 These were very different concerns from those I hear in San Francisco—a city with no kids and no data centers—which preoccupies itself more with fears of strange, self-propagating machine species, or the more workaday concern of your startup running out of cash. Through the spring, I watched digital maps light up with proposed data center sites, then proposed moratoriums. Viral videos showcased protesters dragged out of city meetings, or residents whose tap water suddenly ran brown. More Perfect Union blamed AI companies. OpenAI blamed China.2 Polls indicate that Democrats and Republicans are matched in detesting data centers: roughly 30% for, 70% against. Comedian-turned-activist Charlie Berens called data centers “the most bipartisan issue since beer.” I still felt that I did not really understand the data center backlash, and was slightly skeptical of the one-sided national news. New closed-loop cooling systems use about as much water as a golf course. Factories and power plants are just as ugly and much more polluting. Construction opposition is usually highly localized—build it, just somewhere else—so what made data center activism such a nationwide phenom? The only solution seemed to be hitting the road, going to the towns where data center fights were happening, and talking to as many people as I could: activists, yes, but also workers, planners, politicians, and residents. I wanted to learn: Do most people actually care about data centers, or just a passionate few? What’s motivating these revolts—is it about AI, or energy costs, or good old NIMBYism? How did local opposition become a national issue? And how is AI moving elections? On July 13, I packed my bags and flew to Madison, the trailhead for my 10-day, 4-site data center adventure in the upper Midwest. Three friends and co-researchers joined me for the trip. It’s worth noting that Wisconsin and Michigan are not exactly data center central, as they rank in the upper-middle of the pack.3 But what these states offer is a unique lens on how data center fights intersect with battleground primaries, industrial history, and residents’ deep attachment to the land. Our first stop was Janesville. The city crossed my radar via the 2017 book of the same name, which chronicled the community’s struggles after a 90-year-old GM plant closed in 2008. The whole city—about 64,000 people—had been built around auto manufacturing. And since 2008, the old GM/JATCO site has remained unused, a derelict 250-acre lot in the middle of town.