Our conversations with data center developers have changed. Social license, activism and community sentiment is now the first item on the agenda in meetings from Houston to London to Sydney, as the industry experiences a level of public scrutiny more commonly associated with mining, energy and other extractive sectors.
Data centers move into the spotlight
Opposition to data centers has become a global phenomenon. Concerns are typically driven by their perceived power demand, water use and noise impact, as well as resistance to the rollout of artificial intelligence. The shift has been rapid enough to take many industry participants by surprise. Long accustomed to operating largely outside of public and media scrutiny, the sector now finds itself in the spotlight. This goes far beyond a handful of negative comments on social media that have a reputational impact: we are seeing opposition progress from negative sentiment online to organized protest marches and, increasingly, real world physical risks.
The US is the epicenter of this opposition, with the 'Human First' protests against data center development staged nationwide in July 2026. Demonstrations have also emerged elsewhere. Earlier this year, protesters in Malaysia raised concerns over a development's impact on water supplies, while demonstrators in the UK marched against proposed data center expansion. Australia is also beginning to see campaigns focused on the impact of specific developments on local communities.
From online criticism to real-world action
In the US, organized community opposition has been successful in delaying or blocking data center developments across several states. In December 2025, for example, a city council in Arizona unanimously rejected a proposed USD 2bn AI data center after nearly 300 residents attended a council meeting to protest concerns over rising electricity costs and limited local benefits. In June 2026, a data center project in Virginia was canceled largely in response to local community legal action and protest. But there are signs that opponents are considering more violent tactics. In April 2026 an assailant fired 13 shots into an Indianapolis city councilor's home and left a "No Data Centers" note following his support for a proposed USD 500m facility in Martindale-Brightwood. Two attacks against the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that same month highlight growing opposition to AI that could also manifest as attacks on data centers in the future.
Those involved in campaigns against data centers range from concerned local residents and well-organized NGOs to more 'hardcore' activists focused on both environmental impacts and resistance to the rollout of artificial intelligence. Data centers have become a convenient target for anyone keen to express opposition to the major AI labs, hyperscalers and the potential societal implications of their technologies. While leading AI companies often have a limited physical footprint in most parts of the world, data centers and their corporate offices are more widespread and relatively easy to identify.
These challenges come at a time when developers' clients are demanding new capacity as soon as available. As an example, Anthropic reportedly wants access to 1GW of operational capacity in Australia by the end of 2027. This is broadly equivalent to the output of a large nuclear reactor or the electricity consumption of a city of 80,000 homes. The current total operational capacity in Australia is estimated at around 1.5GW, meaning extensive, additional construction is required. In the US, infrastructure tracker Cleanview is tracking 1,789 planned data centers with a capacity of 363GW.
Lessons from a familiar challenge
The data center industry is not the first to experience this level of scrutiny and opposition. The most obvious parallel is the extractives industry, which has long been a focus of attention from environmental and community groups. It is no coincidence that some NGOs frame data centers in terms of data mining and the extraction of local resources, particularly water. Some activists draw a direct link between data centers' power demands and increased reliance on fossil fuels to generate the power required. Some of the direct-action tactics they are starting to use against data centers will be familiar to mining and fossil fuel developers.
The response of the extractives industry offers useful lessons for data center developers and the wider ecosystem. Beyond the community consultation and listening that responsible oil and gas and mining companies undertake as a matter of course, organizations need mechanisms to monitor and anticipate emerging narratives, concerns, misinformation and disinformation. This helps identify issues before they gain momentum and provides early warning of protest tactics and narratives that can spread rapidly between markets. Approaches first seen in the US, for example, quickly gain traction in countries such as Australia. In recent months, we have seen multiple developers around the world adopt exactly this kind of monitoring.
Addressing some of the popular misconceptions around data centers is equally important. For example, a data center employing a closed-loop cooling system uses far less water than one using an older, more traditional system. Yet this distinction is often absent from media coverage and public debate, where water consumption is frequently treated as a uniform issue across the sector. Once repeated across media, local stakeholder groups and activist channels, misconceptions can become entrenched beliefs. In an environment where risk perceptions are rapidly amplified, even a technical misunderstanding can evolve into a material project risk.
Adapting to a world of heightened scrutiny
Scrutiny of the data center sector will not fade away. It will increase in line with the rapid expansion of the industry in locations such as the US, Western Europe, Japan, Malaysia and Australia. As a result, developers increasingly need to treat social license as a core delivery risk, rather than just a reputational consideration.
Developers can take several practical steps to protect program certainty:
- Monitor emerging activist narratives before they affect projects.
- Engage communities earlier and more effectively.
- Respond quickly to misinformation and substantiate environmental and technical claims with evidence.
- Anticipate evolving protest tactics and associated security risks.
- Stress-test physical security against emerging threats.
As demand for new capacity accelerates, the ability to anticipate and manage social, security and operational risks will increasingly determine which projects stay on schedule and which face costly delays. Download our data center resilience framework to explore practical approaches for protecting program certainty, strengthening resilience and reducing the risk of disruption across the data center lifecycle.