AI Data Centers Spark Political Firestorm as Public Opposition Threatens $130 Billion in Projects

Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears

* More than half of Americans say they're more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center. * That's one reason data center construction is becoming a major issue for the midterm elections in many states across the country. * The tech backlash picked up momentum this week as Meta agreed to a landmark settlement in a case brought by dozens of state AGs. In this article * META Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A woman holds signs during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion outside Peace Hall in New Port Richey, Florida on July 18, 2026. Thomas Simonetti | AFP | Getty Images Silicon Valley's technology leaders have long dreamed of making the world a better place. But now more than ever, Americans say they're living in a tech-induced nightmare. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence giants like OpenAI and Anthropic has exacerbated a deep malaise toward the tech sector, especially among people who have come to associate AI with job loss and now see outsized data centers rising up in their backyards. The last generation of technology, meanwhile, ushered in a cohort of social media apps that proved so addictive that Meta agreed to fork over up to $17 billion as part of a landmark settlement this week. At a time of stubbornly high inflation that's pushed consumer confidence to a seven-month low, Americans are looking up to see tech's trillion-dollar companies getting bigger and more powerful, all while being led by some of the wealthiest people on the planet. "If this technology takes off in the way that you see the CEOs of AI Labs talking about, we're facing a significant impact to our economy, to people's jobs, to their sense of agency," Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of research firm AI Now Institute, told CNBC in an interview. "There are lots of members of the public that don't want to see that vision roll out." More than half of Americans say they're more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center. That's up from 37% in 2021. And in a poll earlier this year, the Searchlight Institute found that the overwhelming majority of voters believe social media has a negative impact on society. watch now VIDEO4:4604:46 Meta settlement 'imposes significant regulatory changes,' says fmr. Assistant AG Jonathan Kanter Squawk on the Street Confidence in AI executives is even more dismal, according to a CNBC Generation Lab survey of 18- to 34-year-olds. More than 75% of respondents said they don't trust Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to act responsibly, while around 70% of respondents expressed those views about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The public's mounting disdain toward the tech sector could prove to be especially challenging for Anthropic and OpenAI, which are both valued at nearly $1 trillion and are gearing up for potentially historic IPOs. Those offerings could mint a number of fresh billionaires and scores of millionaires. AI backlash is expected to appear as a key risk factor in Anthropic's IPO prospectus, as CNBC previously reported. In a post on X earlier this month, Amodei acknowledged that the public has a negative view of AI, and he said Anthropic and other companies will have to deliver on their promises to improve people's lives. "I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust," Amodei wrote. "I think that ordinary people don't trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over. The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it." Experts told CNBC that backlash against the tech sector is reaching new heights, and that the widespread angst is drowning out conversations about its potential benefits, particularly in regards to AI. Companies have to go beyond a charm offensive, they say. "Treating it as a PR problem and a problem of public sentiment would be tremendously misguided," West said. "To improve public sentiment requires really meaningfully contending with where the public is at and what they want in a more meaningful way than just, 'Can we convince you to get on board?'" 'There's not a lot of trust' AI data centers, the large facilities that house the hardware for training and running AI models, have become a particularly sore subject, serving as a physical manifestation of the widespread anger toward AI. During the first quarter of this year, around $130 billion worth of data center projects were blocked or delayed due to local opposition, according to a report from Data Center Watch. In just three months, that figure neared the roughly $156 billion worth of facilities that were disrupted during all of 2025. As backlash against the facilities has mounted, groups like the Stop Data Centers Coalition have been pushing for a national moratorium on new projects to give lawmakers and the public time to more closely examine their environmental, societal and economic impacts. Emily Wurth, organizing director for Food and Water Watch, said data center concerns cut across a number of issues, including water use, higher utility bills, emissions increases, noise pollution and the potential that the facilities are "taking over agricultural land." In parts of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, she said she's seen "hundreds of people showing up to speak out and oppose these projects." "I think it likely caught companies and legislators by surprise," she said. In an aerial view an Amazon Web Services data center is seen on August 26, 2026 in Stone Ridge, Virginia. Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images The outrage has spilled into the tech workforce. Amazon engineers testified at a Seattle City Council meeting in June to call for greater government regulation of AI data centers, and criticized the company's use of "dirty energy" at some sites. "There's not a lot of trust necessarily in the utilities and the regulators, given the higher electricity prices that we've seen over previous years," James Coleman, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, told CNBC in an interview. Sentiment isn't universally negative. Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute, said in an interview that "many unions are coming out in favor of data centers, not only because of the initial construction boom, but also the electricians and HVAC" professionals that are in demand "once they're built." The so-called hyperscalers responsible for much of the building boom say they're responding to insatiable demand from businesses and consumers for their services, many of which are enabling critical advancements in areas like medical research and precision farming. Even so, opposition to data centers has become a major flashpoint in this year's midterm elections, which are just two months away. Both Democratic and Republican hopefuls have spoken out against the facilities during their campaigns. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, warned that data centers have become a "sleeper issue" for the entire midterm election cycle, according to a memo obtained by CNBC earlier this month. Social media in the spotlight Jim Steyer, CEO of the nonprofit Common Sense Media, said bipartisan opposition to tech extends well beyond just data centers. He said Americans are "fed up" with the behavior of a number of big tech companies. "There is genuinely a techlash, and it's not partisan at all," Steyer, whose brother Tom was a Democratic candidate for governor in California, told CNBC in an interview. "It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, or you vote for Republicans or Democrats, or what part of the country you live in. It's everywhere." The lawsuit that Meta settled this week was brought by a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, who argued that Meta endangered children and teens with its social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to make substantial changes to its products in addition to paying billions of dollars in penalties. Meta agreed to impose channges including a default two-hour daily time limit for teens across Facebook and Instagram, muted notifications during school hours, and enhanced parental controls, with more updates potentially on the horizon. "It's a floor conceptually, not a ceiling," California AG Rob Bonta, who co-led the case, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Steyer described the settlement as an overdue but "well-deserved victory" that reflects broad public sentiment. He added that the antipathy towards tech is the most intense it's been since he founded Common Sense more than 20 years ago. It's a "qualitatively different moment in terms of the backlash," Steyer said. "If I were running one of the big companies, I would be very aware of that." Then there's the matter of surveillance, and Atlanta startup Flock Safety. Flock's technology, which photographs every passing license plate and uses AI to extract data, has been installed across thousands of American cities and towns. Critics say police have used the cameras to stalk women or wrongfully accuse people of crimes. Ahead of the midterms, politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for greater regulation. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, posted a video on X earlier this month accusing his Republican counterpart, Mike Rogers, of enabling their proliferation. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose term will come to an end in January, said this week the systems were "out of control." President Donald Trump said his stance on the cameras is "under review." More than 90 cities have deactivated, rejected or canceled Flock contracts so far this year, according to DeFlock, an advocacy group that tracks the rollout of Flock systems. Flock didn't provide a statement for this story. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the fallout "folds neatly" into the resentment toward AI, data centers and the power of tech billionaires. "I think there is a long-term grassroots bipartisan suspicion of this kind of surveillance," he said. -- CNBC's Annie Palmer and CJ Haddad contributed to this report watch now VIDEO6:1306:13 Tusk Venture's Bradley Tusk talks what data centers need to do to gain trust Closing Bell: Overtime Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Panicking Tech Execs Try to Pivot Message on AI Data Centers

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Data centers are wildly unpopular amongst the US population -- so much so that grassroots opposition threatened some $130 billion in developments over the first three months of 2026 alone. Tech executives, as a result, are having to make a calculated decision to change their tune, from AI doomsaying to something more palatable to the everyman. But just like their proselytizing over the coming AI apocalypse -- messaging meant to win over investors and scare everybody else into ceding regulatory power -- they don't seem to realize that the entire world is watching as they execute their cynical pivot out loud. Case-in-point, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian recently observed in a social media post flagged by Axios that "we gotta figure out a new narrative on this data center thing." The decidedly meek reflection is part and parcel of the tech industry's increasingly obvious dilemma. Caught between dual political and financial pressures to win the public's approval on data centers, tech billionaires are increasingly trying to address the public directly with new messages of hope, a positive vision for the shared future of humanity. As one can imagine, it doesn't come easy to them. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, for example, penned a teeth-grittingly optimistic 6,500-word essay earlier in August, claiming that AI will "free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you accomplish more than you could otherwise." But talk is incredibly cheap, and as the Meta CEO's own corporate practice shows, worker wellbeing isn't exactly a top priority for the tech industry elite in the age of AI. In other cases, tech entrepreneurs are cooking up utopian fantasies for AI capabilities that don't even exist yet. "Someone needs to rebrand data centers," Matt Higgins, co-founder and CEO of venture capital firm RSE Ventures said in a social media post. Though RSE has a diverse portfolio spanning sectors like entertainment and media, it also has a vested interested in military AI -- and therefore hyperscale data centers. "Fraud prevention centers. Clean-energy optimization centers. Precision agriculture centers," Higgins mused. "Because 'data center' describes the infrastructure, not the breakthroughs its computing power makes possible." Back in the real world, AI is supercharging fraud and environmental degradation at an unprecedented scale, while supplying some farmers with hallucinated advice resulting in easily-preventable crop failure. In other words, whether the industry delivers on Higgins' laundry list of breakthroughs remains a question of if, not when. All in all, the messaging from tech industry elites and their financiers might be taking on a more optimistic tone -- but it's still the same old smoke-and-mirrors as it ever was.

US election candidates turn on AI data centers as power bills, noise fuel anger

Data centers are now a key election issue across America. Rising electricity bills and noise pollution fuel voter anger against Big Tech companies. Candidates from both parties are campaigning on opposition to these facilities. Some states have imposed moratoriums and new regulations on data center development. This growing opposition challenges the industry's rapid expansion and political influence. Brazoria: The data centers powering America's artificial intelligence boom have become an unlikely target in November's midterm elections, as anger over rising electricity bills and noise turns Democrats -- and a growing number of Republicans -- against Big Tech. Candidates in at least 21 races across 18 states have aired television advertisements mentioning data centers this cycle, according to marketing data cited by US media, almost evenly divided between both parties. On the grid serving Senate battleground Ohio, as well as 12 other states, demand from data centers drove up capacity costs by $9.3 billion in a single year, a 174 percent increase, according to an independent market monitor. Anger over household bills has merged with a broader populist distrust of Silicon Valley, exposing lawmakers who, until recently, were courting the sprawling server farms with tax breaks and promises of jobs and investment. In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott has frozen new projects while regulators weigh their impact on power and water supplies. It was Abbott who, not long ago, called his state the "epicenter of AI development." His Democratic challenger wants a moratorium until lawmakers pass stronger safeguards, and accuses Abbott of putting wealthy interests ahead of ordinary Texans. In Brazoria -- between Houston and the Gulf Coast -- 44-year-old Melissa Burnett told AFP the serenity of her quiet neighborhood had been shattered by a 17-megawatt center last year that is "like a freight train always coming at you." "We were not supposed to hear it, nor was it supposed to affect our quality of life, and it's just done the opposite, you know?" she said. Almost alone among Republicans, President Donald Trump has not moved. He still calls the industry essential to beating China on AI, leaving him at odds with candidates running under his own banner. 'Sleeper issue' The midwestern former manufacturing hub of Ohio offers perhaps the sharpest test of the politics of data centers. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who lost his Senate berth in 2024, is running for the Buckeye State's other seat. Brown has run at least four ads attacking Republican Jon Husted for courting data center investment as lieutenant governor. They brand Husted "the face of data centers," and Brown has promised to make operators pay the full cost of the power they use. Senate Republicans have warned that the issue could cost Husted the race. Their campaign arm called data centers a "sleeper issue" and said a defeat blamed on them would chill political support for the industry nationwide. The same argument is turning up in races that have little else in common: a Republican running for governor in Florida promising to shield families from facilities that push up utility bills; a Pennsylvania Democrat demanding that tech companies cover their own costs; a Wyoming Republican who won a House primary on advertisements attacking Silicon Valley billionaires. In Michigan, the issue toppled two better-connected Democrats in a primary won by a leftist who said opposition had united committed Republicans, Trump voters, independents and Democrats. Both parties turn In Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany has taken to calling his Democratic opponent "Data Center David Crowley." Earlier this year Tiffany was praising the technology and voting to speed AI infrastructure through. Tiffany now wants the state's tax incentives scrapped and the industry more tightly regulated, though he stops short of a ban. Democratic governors are moving the same way. New York has imposed a year-long moratorium on new hyperscale facilities, and Pennsylvania now requires developers to cover infrastructure costs and meet tougher standards on water use, hiring and community consultation. Trump has not moved with them. "America must remain dominant in the AI race that is the future. I think the American people understand that, and this president certainly does," his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. His administration has signed up Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon to a voluntary "Ratepayer Protection Pledge." Under it, the companies undertake not to leave consumers paying for the power plants and grid upgrades their facilities require. The pledge has not stopped the advertisements.