Data center backlash is about electricity, MIT Technology Review argues

MIT Technology Review's James O'Donnell argued on Monday that the US backlash against data centers is driven more by electricity than by a broader culture war. He made the case in The Algorithm newsletter after visiting Ashburn, Virginia, in the week of the midterms.

It matters because AI companies are betting on building much bigger sites. Whether the opposition is about politics or power lines decides what kind of public relations campaign, if any, can fix it.

The industry's reading

O'Donnell points to a post by OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, written two days after the midterms. Lehane wrote that data centers "have become a proxy for public unease about affordability, corporate power, and people losing control over their futures."

O'Donnell isn't convinced. After a few days in Ashburn, part of what's known as Data Center Alley, he came away believing the backlash is more about electricity than Big Tech admits.

Two ways to get power, two kinds of anger

His argument rests on a split. A data center can draw from the grid, or it can generate power onsite.

In Virginia's Loudoun County, most facilities use the grid. O'Donnell writes that the average data center in this part of the state has a power capacity of 54 megawatts, more than the draw of Denver International Airport. Activist Elena Schlossberg told him, "It was always about power."

Grid-connected sites have already produced rules. Virginia's governor's office announced new requirements that data centers pay fully for new transmission lines, according to O'Donnell. Developers also told him they're preparing for rules that could cut them off from grid power during peak demand.

The newer AI sites mostly don't work this way. O'Donnell says companies are building in rural areas with little grid infrastructure and bringing their own gas turbines, with diesel generators as backup. He puts the smallest sites attractive for AI training at 300 megawatts, and the ideal at about 6,000 megawatts, roughly the estimated draw of Chicago.

He also cites Elon Musk's xAI in Memphis, where, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the company violated air quality laws by setting up dozens of turbines.

The scale is growing. The Financial Times reported that Anthropic agreed to spend $3.4 billion on 1.7 gigawatts of gas generators, taking over Caterpillar orders first placed by the supplier OnePWR Solutions. DCD describes it as the largest known single purchase of power-generation equipment by a frontier lab. One write-up of the FT report notes it doesn't say where the generators will be installed.

What the election results show

The vote gives the electricity argument some support, though it doesn't settle it. WJLA reported that Sen. Mark Warner and Reps. Suhas Subramanyam and Eugene Vindman made data centers a focus of their campaigns and all won by double digits. The station said the issue is tied to cost-of-living worries, because transmission costs are often passed on to household bills.

Polling points the same way. A July VCU Wilder poll found 73% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans oppose Virginia's data center tax break.

The industry disputes the bill argument. In 2025, Axios reported that data center companies say they're unfairly singled out and have paid their full cost of service in Virginia. Those two claims don't match, and I'd say the dispute over who actually pays is the one to watch.

O'Donnell himself says electricity isn't the sole cause. Fears of job losses, existential risk and corporate power all play a part, he writes, as does misinformation: most facilities use far less water than many people think.

What happens next

O'Donnell says newly elected politicians may turn out less hostile to data centers than their campaigns suggested. He expects that onsite-power projects will go where fewest people can resist them, such as the Permian Basin, or abroad.

Google is one example of the overseas option. Reuters reported that the company will invest $15 billion in Malaysia from 2027 to 2028 and says it will pay for 100% of the power its campuses use, plus the direct costs of connecting them to the grid.

Musk, meanwhile, posted hours after the results that "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now."

I think O'Donnell's strongest point is physical: a facility that draws as much as a city is hard to make pleasant to live next to, however good the community benefits package. Honestly, I'd be wary of any claim that the backlash is purely cultural, since the rules passed so far, like Virginia's transmission cost rule, target electricity costs directly. It's also likely that some of the anger is broader than power, as O'Donnell concedes, so the truth is probably a mix.