The Washington Post reports:

Kyle Schmidt ticked through what makes him irate about the massive Google data center slated for construction about a mile away from his home near Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

He didn’t like that residents were kept in the dark about what would be built on a pristine tract of mostly forested land. He’s worried about the data center’s potential impact on the community’s water supply and on the dream home that his family moved into last year.

But Schmidt said what really bothers him is the powerlessness he felt as the project advanced and elected officials, Google representatives and bigwig data center backers belittled or misled people who raised concerns.

“I hate bullies,” said Schmidt, a 43-year-old flooring sales and project manager who leads a community group opposing the project. “Data center developers discovered if we can sneak in here without anyone noticing, we can pretty much take what we want.”

A rare issue uniting Americans is opposition to data centers, the sprawling computer complexes that are the most visible manifestation of the artificial intelligence boom. In a recent Gallup poll about 7 of 10 Americans said they would oppose a data center being built near them, and many express concerns about the projects operating in secret and gobbling scarce land, water and electricity.

But experts and activists say that the intensity and breadth of the data center backlash reveals something bigger: Americans’ disgust with political and economic systems that feel stacked against them. Data centers, often backed by technology giants and advancing at the speed of AI, may be tangible symbols for a fed-up public to push back against powerful and unaccountable interests. [Continue reading…]