President Trump’s high-profile support for what appeared to be a new project by OpenAI to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence is designed to give him credit for advancing data centers that are unpopular with nearby residents and may yet see a wave of opposition despite the efforts of big tech companies, according to a leading researcher and community advocate.
“I think what we're seeing now is just a continuation of things that were already in motion, but without the gloss of regulation or environmental oversight,” said Tamara Kneese. “The problem is that the public is not privy to these conversations, about what the true environmental and financial and human rights costs of data-center expansion will be.”
Kneese directs the Climate, Technology and Justice program at the group Data and Society, which aims to up citizen engagement on tech policy issues. She discussed OpenAI’s Stargate project with Inside AI Policy, highlighting opposition to data centers both locally -- especially in places like Virginia’s data center ally -- and globally.
Ireland, Chile, Spain and the Netherlands are among countries where U.S. companies like Google and Meta have backed down from building data centers due to concerns that include noise and health effects, and energy and water consumption.
Kneese said the Stargate project, which was initially rolled out in the spring of 2024, is “not necessarily new,” and that the narrative from big tech companies -- which emphasizes economic growth and job opportunities -- is speculative at best.
Despite this, she said, “we have already seen state governments and utility companies making deals with large tech companies like Amazon, like Google, like Microsoft, in order to give them tax breaks and subsidies for building AI data centers. So we have had precedent for decision making happening behind closed doors … and the argument is something like the ‘AI data centers will bring jobs and create revenue for local and state governments.’ And it doesn't really matter if that's the case or not.”
“The idea of building out more infrastructure to power AI and the potential of super computing, this is all part of the rhetoric that OpenAI certainly has been on for quite a while now,” Kneese said. “Trump is now obviously very willing to take credit for this, and tech leaders are very willing to allow him to take credit, because that's a savvy political move for them.”
Kneese noted that the Stargate presentation at the White House follows an executive order former President Biden signed to fast track the permitting for data centers on federal sites. But she said that was at least accompanied by other efforts to advance clean energy, and responsible AI.
Trump’s executive orders rolling back clean energy, on the other hand, might add to the opposition communities are starting to express over data centers in relation to unfair cost burdens -- concerns also raised federally by Republicans on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- she said.
“I do think that there will be a lot of fights happening on the state level and the local level, including very much in red states, in states like Ohio and Indiana. I think that there will be some pushback from even Republicans who whose constituents are very much benefiting from some of the push for clean energy, or who are being impacted by the negative health and environmental and financial ramifications of data center expansion,” she said.
“The clean energy train is not going to stop. A lot of these subsidies attached to green energy are also in red states, so that is a political problem,” she added, referencing states like Texas which is a leading producer of wind energy.
Kneese said “the cost burden is something that will probably be more immediately apparent. People make that connection, [And] I think that we will see a lot more anger and resistance,” soon, based on that.
But in general, she said: “the data centers often have diesel generators that are polluting the air around [nearby residents], there are issues around noise -- both from fans and from generators. [And] that doesn't even get into the water issues.”
Fights over water particularly drive home the democracy issue Kneese says is at the center of her efforts.
“Having data centers in drought-stricken areas like in Arizona, for example, where water is already a major problem for people who live there, it is really alarming to think that it is just a handful of tech companies that are determining what should be done with the limited resources that we have,” she said.
Ultimately, Kneese said, “we do need better data on exactly what the emissions are, what the water cost of AI data centers and other infrastructures are, but we also need to have a better way of communicating the potential health impacts or other quality-of-life impacts to the public.”