Hundreds of people jockeyed for a seat at the most in-demand event in Bastrop, Texas, on a Wednesday evening in July. More than 240 people filled each available chair in a Hampton Inn conference hall, as more stood in the back. Dozens were turned away due to fire code constraints, and more than 250 more tuned in to listen online.
What brought them all together? Data centers. More specifically, a shared anxiety over proposed data centers in Bastrop County, southeast of Austin, and a desire to block the giant computer warehouses from being built.
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Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican and the first statewide elected official to voice concerns over data centers, joined the group in Bastrop. His first worry was the loss of farmland, but the list quickly expanded to include water and power consumption.
“We were already out of water before the data centers got here,” Miller told the room, citing ongoing drought and how many farms across the state have shut down or scaled back. “This is the hottest issue in the state right now.”
READ MORE: Inside the Texas water crisis pitting residents against industry
After Miller spoke, residents lined up for questions that at times verged on political speeches. The number and scale of gripes against data centers quickly expanded to include flood risk for neighbors, noise pollution, fires, increased housing costs, loss of wild spaces, fears over how AI will be used and more.
The bipartisan group inside the Hampton Inn reflects how opposition to data centers is quickly becoming the one thing most Americans agree on. The movement has grown through on-the-ground organizing efforts to oppose specific projects springing up across the country. In New Mexico, a heated meeting ended with three people arrested for disorderly conduct. In Kansas, a teacher faced charges when he clapped for a speaker at a county commission meeting. And the backlash has been amplified through viral social media content that has catapulted data centers to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist.
Wired claims that data centers “Broke American Politics,” while The New York Times describes their rollout as part of “The Impending, Inescapable Deluge of A.I.” Most Americans prefer a nuclear power plant to a new data center in their community. And, perhaps the clearest evidence that the topic has hit the mainstream: This week, retired NFL player and America’s brother-in-law Jason Kelce dropped a commercial for his beer brand with a song urging Americans to “cool these data centers” by mailing in pee.
What is a data center?
Data centers are not new. Buildings, or at least rooms full of computers, are as old as the internet itself. They house the physical infrastructure that makes the digital world operate. These centers experienced a construction boom in the 2000s and 2010s as financial services, cloud computing, online streaming and social media drove the need for more storage.
But the latest expansion is bigger, and the public is taking notice. Google Trends data reveals that the number of people searching for information on data centers hit an all-time high in 2026 — more than tripling on average compared with 2025.
Today’s data center boom is all about artificial intelligence. A new AI tool takes enormous amounts of computing power to train. Once a model is trained, each Chat GPT prompt or AI-generated video uses a little more computing power — and all of it is run on electricity.
The data center boom is best measured in gigawatts. One gigawatt is the amount of electricity a large power plant can produce in a single moment.
A July BloombergNEF report forecasts that by 2035, there will be 194 gigawatts of data centers on the U.S. power grid. That’s up from 40 gigawatts connected to the grid as of 2025 and 83% higher than the previous projection in BloombergNEF’s December 2025 report.
At 194 gigawatts, data centers could require nearly four times more electricity than the peak power demand for the entire state of California on its hottest summer day. At this scale, virtually every corner of the U.S. is touched by proposed data centers.
‘A lot of people talking about this’ (for money)
Warren Langford is the founder of 505matic, a worker-owned civic media co-op in New Mexico, where he reports on local pushback against Project Jupiter, a proposed Oracle data center expected to be bigger than New York’s Central Park. In June, influencers across the state, many with relatively small online followings, told him they’d been contacted by a digital marketing agency called XOMAD with an ambiguous offer.
Tucked at the end of a mass email, that also included a plug for Meta’s new “AI tool for creators” and a “recommended brands list” for Pride Month collaborations, was an opportunity for a “PAID Collab: Shaping New Mexico’s Future!”
“Are you passionate about promoting the growth and well-being of your fellow residents?” the email asked. “Well, we have a great opportunity for you! We’re looking for creators to educate local audiences about a new project that will create jobs, improve infrastructure, and support New Mexico’s economy!”
The email left an impression in the community.
Erin Muffoletto is one of the creators who received the email. She’d worked with XOMAD in the past, and said they’re a respected agency among New Mexico influencers.
Still, she said, she wasn’t interested.
“New Mexico is my home,” she told Straight Arrow. “Anything to see it thrive. Like, yes, I am all about promoting it.”
But Muffoletto has promised herself she will only choose collaborations she fully believes in. And she doesn’t believe data centers are a good use of community resources.
“Especially in a place like New Mexico,” she told Straight Arrow. “We are a desert.”
Muffoletto told Straight Arrow she saw at least one person take the deal but subsequently remove the post after other influencers in the comments had asked why she was supporting the project.
Other creators apparently accepted the fee, including @nurse_brandon_d_thompson, whose Instagram bio declares that he empowers “nurses to become more than just healthcare professionals.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people talking about this,” he said in his Instagram video, “some for it, some not really for it, so I decided to partner with Oracle to do my own research, and look into it myself.”
His video explains that the data center will be powered by its own microgrid, independent of the power grid, and that the company has committed to providing funding for local groups like the community college and Boys and Girls Club. Additionally, he said, the project would use a closed-loop system, and “not impact local water supply” because it “uses non-drinkable water from a current water rights owner.”
NPR reported last month that the water for the data center will be drawn from groundwater in the lower Rio Grande basin. The water rights Project Jupiter plans to use amount to 2,400 acre-feet — approximately 1,180 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth — of water per year.
However, that might still affect the environment and the state’s environmental commitments. In May, the Supreme Court settled a 13-year lawsuit by the state of Texas against New Mexico. Now, “New Mexico will need to reduce groundwater pumping in the Lower Rio Grande by 18,200 acre-feet within the next 10 years,” according to Source NM.
“Our Rio Grande right now is as dry as I’ve ever seen it,” said Muffoletto. “I used to kayak down that river all the time and none of that’s happening right now.”
Langford, the reporter, echoed these statements.
“The Rio Grande right now is dry. It is dry through our biggest city, Albuquerque, and that is an enormous symbol to us in New Mexico, where we really value water,” he told Straight Arrow. “Even if you use the littlest amount of water, like what is that for? For 400 jobs that are temporary.”
READ MORE: The big reason small cities want data centers. Hint: It’s not permanent jobs
On July 29, Albuquerque news outlet KOAT reported that a “heated” meeting in Doña Ana County over Project Jupiter had “led to three arrests for disorderly conduct” and “strong reactions from the public.”
Engagement leads to profits
PR-backed, pro-data center online content is competing with a wave of content that appears to be opposed to the construction of the projects. Much of it, ironically, is AI-generated, raising questions around whether anti-AI sentiment is organic or whether it is being created simply to gain clicks.
As Straight Arrow recently reported, AI-generated misinformation, sponsored disinformation and paid political promotions are highly prevalent in the current social media and content ecosystem. It makes sense to ask why anti-data center content is so viral — and who is creating it.
Henry Adjer, an expert on online deepfakes, told Straight Arrow that it might be a tempting or convenient narrative for data center developers to claim that campaigns or content opposing their plans is being generated by foreign influences who want to harm America’s AI capacities.
But Adjer told Straight Arrow he is not aware of any evidence “which has definitively proven… with a high, high, high degree of confidence” that anti-data center campaigns are coming from outside the U.S. And at least some of the online viral content opposing data centers is likely being generated simply because people are engaging with it.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if there are some people who, completely dispassionately, are like ‘Oh, this content is doing really well, I’m going to create something there because I want to get in on the engagement that it’s generating’,” he told Straight Arrow.
That engagement leads to profits.
“I think most of these people are just creating it because it gets engagement, it gets clicks. Some people love it, some people hate it,” Adjer told Straight Arrow. “Either way, it doesn’t really matter to the creator or to the accounts that are making it because all engagement is good engagement.”
How anti-data center fervor spread in Bastrop
In Bastrop, most residents first became aware of a data center proposal from Virginia-based EdgeConnex after local news reports this spring. The news quickly spread on local Facebook groups, multiple residents told Straight Arrow.
“The catalyst was water and then that sparked all the other fears,” said Andrew Griffith, a political activist with the League of Independent Voters, which organized the Bastrop event.
Data centers use water for cooling the thousands of computers, but the amount of water consumed can vary greatly. Facilities that rely solely on fans use the least water, but in some cases, the fans generate disruptive noise. Fans also consume more electricity than liquid cooling methods.
“There is that trade-off of we could use water and use less energy, or we could not use water and use a lot more energy,” said Margaret Cook, a vice president at the Houston Advanced Research Center and author of a January white paper on data center water consumption.
Water is a more efficient way to cool the computers. In 2023, direct water consumption by data centers in the U.S. added up to 66 billion liters, according to a 2024 study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That’s roughly the amount of water that crashes down Niagara Falls in six and a half hours.
In one cooling method, water takes on the heat from computers and evaporates. More water-conscious operations often opt for closed-loop systems where the water is continuously cycled through without evaporating. Closed-loop designs vary, and they can minimize but not eliminate water consumption.
The industry has grown rapidly since 2024, and drought-stricken Texas is attracting more new data centers than any other state. So far, Texas has been unable to determine exactly how much water data centers will consume. The state even had to re-open a survey on water and energy consumption in July after a low response rate.
“There’s no clear picture yet with regard to the consumptive water requirements due to data center development,” said Jeremy Mazur, director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at the nonpartisan think tank Texas 2036. “In order to do our planning right, in order to do water infrastructure development, there has to be a crystal clear picture.”
State water planners already estimate that Texas will need $174 billion over 50 years for water infrastructure.
“We’re adding these new unknowns to that system,” Cook said. “It can certainly add a little bit of fear because we’re so water stressed.”
‘Not your traditional NIMBYism’
Although water was the most frequent concern cited at the July meeting in Bastrop, resistance to data centers goes beyond natural resources or electricity rates.
“This is also not your traditional NIMBYism fight,” said Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program at the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, where he monitors how utility companies are working to bring data centers onto the grid. The stiff opposition to projects stems from deeper questions about the role of AI, according to Slocum.
She asked: “What are they making behind that fence, behind that windowless building?”
And while the tech industry and many politicians are putting forward a narrative that AI will benefit everyone, or that the U.S. has to beat China in a technological race, Slocum said many ordinary Americans simply don’t support the technology.
“It is replacing human labor. It is replacing human independent thought. It’s replacing interpersonal relationships,” he said. “It is a vision of technological overkill that people are totally against, and the data centers are just the physical manifestation of that.”
When Bastrop residents started showing up to County Commission meetings to express their opposition, some felt dismissed and powerless in the process.
“It’s as if we didn’t exist,” Bastrop resident Kat Hammer said.
Hammer worries about how AI can be used in warfare, for mass surveillance and to replace human workers. For that reason, she’s skeptical of the need for the technology, but she started to worry more about the physical impact of data centers once she learned about EdgeConnex.
“I think it ruins the climate and tends to go into neighborhoods where people are vulnerable,” Hammer said.
Hammer decided to run as a write-in candidate for the Bastrop County Commissioners Court after her experience attending commission meetings and feeling that the current elected officials were not listening to residents’ concerns.
A petition circulated around the conference center and lobby requesting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session of the Texas Legislature to pass regulations on data centers. In the meantime, many speakers said Abbott should sign a temporary moratorium on data center construction while legislators write new laws.
“Why do we have to rush?” Hammer asked.
Round out your reading
- All your questions about napping, answered.
- Trump’s $5,000 promise echoes past payouts that never materialized.
- Inside the effort to make data centers pay their share of electricity costs.
- Why did the Feds seize the ’largest Martian meteorite on Earth’?
- Photos and video show exactly where and when Trump visited Ground Zero after 9/11.
