Latest / ACLED Audio / REPORT: US data center unrest is causing political and commercial risks – and it shows no signs of stopping

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REPORT: US data center unrest is causing political and commercial risks – and it shows no signs of stopping · ACLED Audio

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: U.S.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: data center unrest is causing political and commercial risks, and it shows no signs of stopping.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Executive Summary.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Over 340 anti-data center protests have taken place across at least 42 states in the United States since the beginning of 2025.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Texas and Midwestern states, specifically Indiana, have emerged as key sites of protest.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Originally surfacing as expressions of local concern about the potential impact of data centers on the quality of communities' neighborhoods, the cost of their power bills, and the destruction of the environment, anti-data center sentiment has evolved into a national bipartisan political issue in the midterm elections.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the buildup to the midterms, unrest will likely increase as demonstrators demand that candidates promise increased regulation and seek to curtail new projects in their communities.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Violent unrest over data centers has so far been vanishingly rare and remains unlikely in the future.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The risk is, however, most acute for local political figures, who are the most frequent targets of both peaceful protests and rare acts of confrontation or violence.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: AI build-out leads to local backlas concentrated across Texas and the Midwest.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: An anti-data center protest movement, which began as organic isolated expressions of local outrage, has grown into an issue of national importance that is driving municipal and state-level legislation and political posturing ahead of the midterm elections.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Demonstrators have expressed concerns about the impact of data centers on their power bills, neighborhood noise, water quality, and the environment.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: ACLED records over 340 anti-data center protests across 42 states since 2025, over 80% of which have taken place since the beginning of 2026.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Protest data in the United States shows that most major protest movements peak in a moment of public outrage, then gradually subside.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: In contrast, the anti-data center movement is still gathering steam, powered by ongoing concerns about data centers' impact on people's everyday lives.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: The geographic dispersion of the anti-data center movement has been shaped by commercial and governmental responses to the AI build-out, creating differences in the movement's scale and intensity across regions.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The key factors influencing these disparities are the scale and locations of data center construction, as well as the steps taken by governments and businesses to address local concerns.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: As a result of all these factors, the largest anti-data center protest movements since 2025 are centered in the Midwest and Texas.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Refer to the map in the report for details.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Texas is a hub for traditional data centers used for cloud storage, website hosting, and data storage predating the current AI buildout.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is also the state currently building the most data centers.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: As a result of this rapid expansion, Texas has recorded the highest number of demonstrations opposing data centers, most of which have been held in the peri-urban areas where existing data centers are located.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Following a national trend, new facilities in the state are increasingly planned in rural areas.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: While latency was a significant concern for traditional data centers, facilities for training AI models have fewer concerns about quickly delivering data to customers.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: This trend is particularly pronounced in Texas as construction has shifted to private behind-the-meter facilities built on the state's bountiful oil and natural gas fields to generate their own energy, bypassing restrictions tied to the power grid.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: This move away from existing communities has been accompanied by a short-term decline in protests, though the impact on the anti-data center movement remains to be seen.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past two years, new facilities have been concentrated both in the traditional hub of Texas and in new expansions to the Midwest, because they can meet demand for power availability and cheap land and provide state-level incentives for new facilities.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: While over half of anti-data center protests in Texas were held on a single day of action organized by the conservative group Humans First on July 18, 2026, the Midwestern states are seeing a steadily growing protest movement.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Within the Midwest, the largest number of anti-data center protests is in Indiana, which also records the second highest number of these demonstrations overall.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: At least 37 new facilities are planned or under construction, thanks to the state's tax credit offerings for building these facilities and the availability of relatively cheap land near the Chicago metropolitan area.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is striking to see such active demonstration activity in the state, which ranks just 19th among all U.S.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: states for the total number of protests since 2025.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: A similar pattern of strong opposition can be seen across the Midwest, bolded states in the table below, especially in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri, each of which is seeing the expansion of new data centers as a result of land availability in rural areas and favorable state and municipal level incentives.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Refer to the table in the report for details.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Midwestern states with few operational data centers record some of the most demonstrations.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: January 1, 2025 to September 21, 2026.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Local decision makers are in the spotlight and the crosshairs.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Most demonstration movements that reach the current scale of anti-data center mobilization rely on national coordination from a handful of activist groups, but grassroots resistance has proven to be the driving force in the anti-data center movement.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: This feature of anti-data center demonstrations is evident when looking at the sites where demonstrators gather for protests.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: The most common of these sites are city or county-level legislative buildings, as demonstrators seek to pressure local decision makers to regulate, delay, or cancel planned data centers.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nearly four times as many protests occur at these local legislative buildings as at state capitol buildings, the second most common protest site.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: This pattern of demonstration activity reflects the power of local governments to facilitate or impede data center construction, and therefore the influence that residents seek to exert over their local elected representatives to address their concerns.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Though anti-data center demonstration activity has remained overwhelmingly peaceful, in at least two instances in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Mesa, Arizona, protesters were arrested at municipal government buildings during anti-data center protests.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most notably, the sole anti-data center incident involving the use of armed violence targeted an Indianapolis City County counselor.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: On April 6, 2026, an unidentified shooter shot into Councillor Rob Gibson's home and left a note expressing opposition to the construction of new data centers.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Though he was home at the time of the shooting, Gibson was not injured.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Outlook As the midterms draw closer, local protests will flare where data centers are hotly contested.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: With the midterm elections fast approaching and data centers emerging as an attractive issue to campaign on for both major political parties, anti-data center demonstrations will likely increase in the next two months to exert maximum pressure at this pivotal political moment.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Growth should be expected in areas where the movement is already large, regulatory responses are still seen as inadequate, and tight political races are partly defined by the issue of data center construction.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Democratic challenger for the competitive Ohio Senate race, Sherid Brown, has run ads lambasting incumbent Senator John Houston as the face of data centers.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond high-profile races, the protest movement will continue to operate primarily at the local level, and election-related spikes are most likely in Texas, Indiana, and Michigan, where a surge of candidates for municipal office is running on anti-data center platforms.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: As the anti-data center movement continues to target municipal governments as sites of pressure, municipal-level elected officials will remain firmly in the spotlight.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: While confrontations and violence have so far been extremely rare, the risk of future escalation is centered on these local leaders.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Risk factors that can influence how the protest movement develops.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Regulatory effort and commercial response.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Municipal and state-level efforts, for instance, in New York, South Dakota, and most recently California, to regulate data center operators have placated demonstrators by addressing local concerns.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, lawmakers have adopted municipal-level regulation in waves across the Midwest as the anti-data center demonstration movement crests, while Texas Governor Greg Abbott imposed regulations for new data facilities that access Texas's power grid in early August.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, corporate entities have taken steps to address the risks of community blowback, from private electric grids in Texas to a new utility subsidiary dedicated exclusively to data centers in northwest Indiana.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Though most of these measures have come into effect too recently for their impact on demonstration activity to be visible, they directly address demonstrators' demands and are therefore likely to lead to localized reductions in demonstrations.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, regulatory efforts perceived as aesthetic or ineffectual are likely to fuel public anger and may lead to increased confrontations.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Midterm elections Thus far, as the political demand for data center restrictions swells, political figures are willing to address it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: If this trend is borne out by the midterm results, the regulatory landscape may shift substantially in the near future, which may, in turn, address a number of demonstrator concerns and lead to a downturn in the movement.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: However, if opponents of data centers are frustrated by the midterm results or the translation of campaign promises into political action, the movement's frustration may mount, leading to a larger, more confrontational demonstration landscape.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Though federal and state political offices are the focus of the midterms, thousands of city and county elections are held concurrently.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Given the movement's local focus, these dynamics are likely to play out at the community level across the country.