The AI industry has been pouring untold resources into building out enormous data centers across the world.
The plants are immensely resource-hungry, sucking up huge amounts of fresh water to cool ripping-hot computer hardware. They’re turning into a massive strain on the electric grid, forcing some utility operators to enact rolling blackouts during heat waves and cold weather.
The issue reached a fever pitch after the Washington Post reported that a recent rise in customer energy bills was attributable to the enormous and growing power demands of AI data centers.
In short, it’s no wonder that small towns across the nation are coordinating efforts to keep data centers out — a PR disaster tarnishing a major push by AI companies to scale up their expansive operations.
And it seems like Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which has committed to spend $600 billion on AI data centers, is painfully aware of the pushback. As the New York Times reports, the company has already spent $6 million on TV ads to convince Americans that data centers aren’t that bad. As one “folksy” ad showing off a new data center in Altoona, Iowa, argued, “we’re bringing jobs here.”
And it’s not just Meta trying to distract the public from all of the glaring downsides of data centers propping up across the country. Amazon is running its own similar ad campaign in Virginia, for instance, admonishing viewers that the facilities help “connect us to the entire world.”
According to the Financial Times, data center operators are “planning to go on the offensive with a lobbying blitz” as well, trying to get ahead of the growing public backlash. One data center executive told the FT that lobbying spending is a flash in the pan compared to the tens of billions being spent on infrastructure.
“If we’re going to spend tens of billions of dollars this year on capital projects, we probably should spend tens of millions of dollars on messaging,” they argued.
Yet the growing backlash is already hampering construction efforts. Over two dozen projects have already been blocked or delayed this month alone, according to research firm MacroEdge, compared to just 25 total in 2025.
In short, it’s not surprising to see tech giants trying to control the narrative by pouring millions of dollars into changing the public’s opinion about the facilities.
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