Americans don’t know how to fight AI. So they’re fighting data centers.
TL;DR
Demonstrators protest a data center in Tucson, Arizona, in May 2026. | Mamta Popat/Arizona Daily Star via Getty Images On its surface, the national revolt against data centers seems simple: They are a nuisance, and people do not want them in their proverbial backyards. But I haven’t been able to let go of the idea that there must be something much deeper driving the backlash against them, and few other subjects have confounded me more than trying to figure out what to think about it.
Nauti's Take
Exciting: the backlash shows society is finally taking AI infrastructure seriously and demanding a say over power, water and land use — that's healthy democratic pressure. The catch: fighting data centers wholesale also hits the backbone of many useful services and merely shifts the problem elsewhere.
Communities benefit most when they push for strict conditions rather than blanket bans.
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