A new report says activism is interfering with data center construction at a growing rate. In just the first three months of 2026, grassroots groups and protesters achieved the same level of success as in the entire year 2025.
These findings come from an entity called Data Center Watch, which sounds a bit like an activist group itself, though it’s actually a project maintained by the AI research and red-teaming firm 10a Labs.
Apparently, disruption from locals affected 75 projects from January through March, valued at a combined $130 billion. NBC News calls that “the most in a three-month period since the group began tracking in 2023.”
A recent poll from Heatmap Pro explored public sentiment toward data centers in the U.S., finding that the majority would “strongly” oppose one being built in their home. Again, the survey reflects growing opposition, with a similar survey nine months ago showing that Americans were divided more or less evenly on the topic at the time.
In perhaps the most telling sign of a growing cultural consensus against data centers, the Atlantic published a contrarian essay on Friday, written by one of its assistant editors, Elias Wachtel. It reads in part:
“[…]the data-center panic is overblown. Most of the complaints inflate the costs of data centers and overlook the fact that, in some contexts at least, they can bring real benefits. If saying no is good politics, it isn’t always good policy.”
So make of that what you will.
At any rate, the Data Center Watch report for the first quarter of 2026 also notes that there are now anti-data center grassroots groups in 49 states, and that statewide proposals are nearing the threshold of passage. Maine’s moratorium was struck down by its governor—who noted at the time that she would sign a slightly altered version of that bill—but the report counts 14 statewide measures introduced in the first three months of 2026.