We can't trust Big Tech to be responsible with data centers | Opinion

Correction & clarification: This column has been updated to reflect the focus of the protest.

The national fight against data centers recently came to my neighborhood. Like dandelions in the spring, signs proclaiming opposition to a massive development that includes a $10 billion Meta data center have popped up in my neighbors’ lawns. 

My neighbors’ protest is focused on plans to pump as much as 25 million gallons a day out of a nearby reservoir and other sources that provide drinking water for Indianapolis and its suburbs, largely to serve the business interests of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and friends.

Those concerns aren’t unique. Americans across the political spectrum have objected to the construction of data centers because of the vast amounts of water, electricity and land they consume. 

Americans all over the country are fighting back against data centers

A recent report by Data Center Watch found that residents and activists in multiple states were successful in delaying or stopping data center projects worth a combined $64 billion between May 2024 and March 2025. 

But thousands of other data centers have been built or are planned across the United States.

In Indiana, where I live, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other companies have proposed or are already building several large-scale data centers. Residents have objected to many of those plans, but with limited success as they take on corporate attorneys and even their own elected leaders.

In Indianapolis, protests against a planned data center took a dangerous turn when shots were fired on April 6 at the home of a city-county council member who voted in favor of the project. The councilman, Ron Gibson, said he found a note saying “no data centers” after the shooting. Gibson and his 8-year-old son were at home when bullets shattered a glass storm door.

Thankfully, the great majority of NIMBY (not in my backyard) activism is peaceful.

Although I am generally a YIMBY – economic growth is an essential tool for improving our quality of life – I do pause when it comes to data centers.

My hesitancy about the projects hinges less on concerns about water and electricity and more on the lack of long-term return on investment for communities. 

State and local governments often subsidize the projects through tax breaks and by building infrastructure. Elected leaders justify those handouts by claiming that the data centers will increase the tax base and create jobs.

But the projects generate relatively few permanent positions. The Meta data center my neighbors are fighting, for example, involves 13 buildings on 1,500 acres. It’s expected to create 4,000 temporary jobs during construction. 

But only 300 jobs will be permanent. 

So, once construction is complete, a few residents in nearby communities will directly benefit from a massive operation owned by the eighth most valuable company in the world. Meta, however, will use our land and water for years to come.

How much do communities benefit from these data center projects?

It’s not difficult to see a near future where Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google and Meta rake in huge profits by mining data in thousands of far-flung data centers that burn resources but employ few people in the communities where they operate. 

One thing that proponents and opponents tend to agree on is that supporters have done an awful job of making the case for widespread data center construction. 

The pro-data center argument essentially comes down to “Trust us. We won’t pollute your water, drive up electricity costs or spoil your hometown.”

Trust, however, is as scarce these days as a moderate Republican (or Democrat).

It’s especially galling that companies like Meta, whose executives were aware of the damage their social media platforms were inflicting on children, are now promising to act responsibly in developing artificial intelligence and building the massive data centers needed to drive AI.

Still, projects like the one my neighbors are fighting are moving forward – in my backyard and in backyards nationwide. Pew Research Center reports that more than 1,500 new data center projects are in development across the country. 

I just wonder if we will look back on this data center building frenzy a decade from now and regret what we’ve done to our land and our water – and to ourselves.

Tim Swarens is a former deputy opinion editor for USA TODAY and former opinion editor of The Indianapolis Star.