美国数据中心建设遭地方反对与州法限制，AI基础设施扩张政治阻力升温

The data center boom is becoming a major issue in the upcoming midterm elections, with local communities pushing back on construction plans amid concerns over electricity rates and environmental impact. Around 75 data center projects worth about $130B were blocked or delayed in the first quarter of 2026 due to local opposition, according to the Data Center Watch. And state lawmakers are responding – at least 375 bills on data centers have been introduced this year, The Washington Post's analysis of legislative records found. Around three-quarters of these bills seek to restrict data centers in some way. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 15 U.S. states have considered moratoriums or bans on data centers this year. So far, only New York has passed a one-year moratorium on the construction of large new data centers. A recent Gallup survey found that seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for AI in their local area. And candidates running for office in the midterms are latching on to the issue, especially since affordability is now the top issue for voters. "Candidates in both parties are increasingly running ads against data centers, framing opponents as indifferent to community concerns over their construction," Nicol Lee and Darrell West, both senior fellows in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution, wrote. "The economy is a central issue in this election, and candidates are therefore packaging affordability, data centers, and electric rate increases into a single narrative and using it to criticize tech development," they added . Mounting local opposition is driven by concerns over data centers' electricity consumption, water use, land availability and environmental impacts. Utilities are receiving hundreds of gigawatts in interconnection requests for data centers, which will further strain the power grid. To meet the surge in demand, utilities need to invest more in infrastructure such as power lines and transformers. And to cover these investments, many utilities are passing on the costs to their customers. Meanwhile, large data centers can consume up to 5M gallons per day for cooling servers, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). That’s equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000-50,000 people. "Infrastructure bottlenecks, supply chain constraints, uncertainty around AI monetization, growing physical climate risks, regulatory hurdles and community opposition will increasingly determine where and how AI infrastructure is built," Allianz Commercial said . Local pushback (Allianz, Data Center Watch) Notable hyperscalers: Amazon ( AMZN ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), Google ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ), Meta ( META ), Oracle ( ORCL ), CoreWeave ( CRWV ).