Data Centre Boom Becomes a Flashpoint Ahead of US Midterm Elections

Data centres, the huge warehouse-like buildings that handle most of our online activity, from web searches and emails to online banking, have moved from obscurity to the centre of a political fight. They also house the advanced chips and servers that run AI services such as ChatGPT and Claude. With the US midterm elections set for 3 November, both Republicans and Democrats have come out against their development.

That puts opponents of expansion at odds with President Donald Trump, who has dismissed the pushback as a "sick conspiracy" even as public anger grows.

According to Data Center Map, which tracks both operational and planned sites, there are about 12,250 data centres worldwide, up sharply from around 8,000 operational sites in 2021. The US has the most, with 4,767, followed by Europe, where the UK and Germany lead. In terms of capacity, the US is ahead by an even wider margin, with China second and Europe far behind. That gap is expected to widen, and some warn that Europe could miss out on the economic benefits of the AI boom.

The buildings are also getting larger. Traditionally placed near cities to ease access to high voltage power lines and water for cooling, more of them are now being built in rural areas as they grow. The largest operational site is widely reported to be a China Telecom facility in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, covering roughly one million square metres, about 140 Fifa football pitches. Even bigger sites are under construction, built solely to supply computing power for AI. One example is Colossus 2, part of the wider Colossus campus, which will hold hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips and be used to train xAI's chatbot Grok. Elon Musk's company will use 41 methane gas turbines to help power it. Activists say this could "significantly increase" local air pollution, while local regulators say the turbines will meet air quality standards.

Resource use lies at the heart of the backlash. Data centres can use large amounts of water for cooling, which some experts say could lead to shortages. Worldwide, they are thought to consume more electricity than all of France. Analysis shows this demand is pushing up carbon emissions and straining local grids, raising fears of higher energy prices. Noise and the amount of land they occupy add to the complaints. About 16 US states have proposed laws to ban or temporarily block new facilities, and opposition has also emerged in Mexico, France, Indonesia and the UK.

Supporters argue that data centres are critical to national security and AI development, and that they bring investment, tax revenue and construction jobs. A recent Brookings Center report suggests they do create local jobs, though fewer than industry advocates claim. It found that hyperscale facilities, the massive sites run by tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft, have a bigger positive effect on employment. Colocation facilities, which lease space to remote tenants with no local presence, brought fewer benefits.

Meanwhile the rollout continues. The tech industry is expected to spend a combined $765bn ($544bn) on AI infrastructure in 2026, with the figure topping $1tn next year.

As environmental concerns mount, the industry is looking at alternatives. One idea is to place data centres in space or on the Moon, where they could use abundant solar energy. Others predict that more AI processing could eventually run on the hardware already inside computers and smartphones, reducing the need for vast data centres.