Data Centers and the Good Neighbor Test: Building Trust in the AI Era

By Bill Kleyman
Executive Chair, Data Center Programs, Informa
Co-Founder and CEO, Apolo.us

The data center industry did not grow slowly into this moment. It arrived quickly, loudly, and with a whole lot of concrete, copper, fiber, GPUs, and power lines.

In the 2026 AFCOM State of the Data Center report, we noted that the past 12 months alone delivered as much innovation, scale, and disruption inside the industry as the previous 10 years combined. Average facility size is approaching 38 MW, up from 32 MW last year. Average rack density climbed to 27 kW per rack, up from 16 kW. And 74% of respondents plan to deploy AI-capable infrastructure, while 72% expect AI workloads to significantly increase capacity requirements. This is not a future trend. These are design assumptions being made right now.

The investment picture is just as startling. JLL projects that nearly 100 GW of new data centers could be added between 2026 and 2030, effectively doubling global capacity, with up to $3 trillion in investment required by 2030. The U.S. data center industry already contributed $727 billion to GDP in 2023, supported 4.7 million jobs, and generated $162.7 billion in federal, state, and local fiscal support that year.

That is the opportunity.

The challenge is that all this growth lands somewhere. It lands in towns, counties, school districts, watersheds, utility territories, and people's backyards. Or at least close enough to feel like their backyard. And, as every data center operator knows, once the neighbors start asking questions, replying with "but the cloud needs it" is not exactly a community engagement strategy. Cloud may be virtual. Construction traffic is not.

The Issue at Hand: Two Fears, One Conversation

We need to be honest about something. The public conversation around data centers is not only about data centers.

There are actually two fears being bundled together.

The first is fear of AI. People worry about jobs, privacy, surveillance, misinformation, automation, bias, and whether AI is moving faster than society can absorb.

The second is fear of physical infrastructure. People worry about water, power, land, noise, traffic, wildlife, property values, and whether their local community is being asked to carry the burden for someone else's digital growth.

Those two concerns often get clumped together, but they’re not the same. That difference matters. If we in the data center industry answer an infrastructure concern with an AI innovation talking point, we lose trust. If we answer a fear with only a spreadsheet, we lose the person.

What's Been Happening

Community pushback has become a structural market risk to data center development.

Across the U.S., moratoriums, zoning delays, state legislation, and local restrictions are emerging quickly. One active tracker currently shows 17 of 50 states restricting or considering restrictions on data centers, with active bans or moratoriums in several jurisdictions and additional legislation advancing elsewhere.

Data Center Knowledge reported that between May 2024 and June 2025, at least 36 U.S. data center projects were delayed or blocked, disrupting an estimated $162 billion in investment. The same article highlighted proposed federal moratorium legislation and local opposition that halted Microsoft's proposed AI data center in Caledonia, Wisconsin.

And then there is the story none of us should ignore. In Indianapolis, City-County Councilor Ron Gibson said someone fired 13 rounds at his front door and left a note reading "No Data Centers" after he supported a proposed data center project. His 8-year-old son was home. No one was injured, but the message was unmistakable. This debate has become emotional, personal, and in at least one case, violent.

Violence is never the answer. Full stop.

But dismissing community fear is not the answer either.

The Impact: Good Neighbors and Bad Neighbors

Let's be fair. There are good data center neighbors. There are also bad ones.

The good ones engage early, explain clearly, listen seriously, and design with the community in mind. The bad ones show up late, hide behind jargon, underestimate local concerns, and act surprised when residents organize against them.

Here is the uncomfortable part. Data centers are often blamed for outcomes that are partly shaped by policymakers, zoning processes, utility tariffs, incentive structures, and local planning decisions. In Indiana, for example, one proposal would have allowed large developments, including data centers and solar farms, on certain agricultural land without the usual local zoning process or public hearings. Critics argued that would strip local governments of authority and shut residents out of decisions. That is not just a data center issue. That is a governance issue.

If lawmakers design bad processes, the industry inherits bad trust.

The Facts Still Matter

Developers and operators need to start with a recognition that data centers are not impact-free. However, public concerns are often shaped by incomplete data, high-profile headlines, or nonrepresentative anecdotes. The need to recognize the impact of data centers and the concerns they raise, while providing context and data around those concerns, prompted the AFCOM organization to publish a recent paper on five top data center community concerns.

On power, the surge in electricity demand is real. But as the AFCOM paper notes, data centers are one part of a much broader electrification trend. Data centers are also becoming a catalyst for clean energy procurement, onsite generation, power storage, and grid modernization.

On water, the concern is real, especially in water-stressed regions. But context matters. The paper estimates U.S. data centers consumed roughly 449 million gallons per day as of 2021, about 0.3% to 0.4% of total daily U.S. water withdrawals. That is meaningful, but much smaller than agriculture or many industrial uses. It also notes the industry's shift toward non-potable water and closed-loop cooling.

On land, data centers can’t simply go up anywhere. Power availability, permitting timelines, grid capacity, fiber, water, climate, and political support all shape where facilities can be built. According to the AFCOM report, development is often concentrated in industrial areas or repurposed brownfield sites.

And on local upside, the "limited benefit" argument often misses the fiscal picture. PwC found the U.S. data center industry's total annual employment contribution grew from 2.9 million jobs in 2017 to 4.7 million jobs in 2023, while total annual GDP contribution grew from $355 billion to $727 billion.

Data centers have become critical infrastructure to run our digitally driven economy, from processing credit cards to storing our medical records to answering AI queries. We can’t run our economy or live the way we want to today without them. That does not mean data centers get a free pass. It means we need perspective. We hear about data centers the most right now because they are new, large, visible, and tied to AI. But we’ve proven that organizations can build and run critical industrial and business infrastructure -- be it factories, shopping malls, or power plants -- in ways that respect our neighborhoods and environment. Data centers can and should meet those standards. 

Beyond the Facts: Fear Is Not Defeated by a Slide Deck

Here is where the data center industry needs to have a different conversation.

You can throw every statistic in the world at someone and still not remove fear.

People are afraid of losing nature. They are afraid power will become less reliable or more expensive. They are afraid their community will change without their consent.

Those fears deserve empathy, not eye rolls.

At the same time, progress can be slowed, but it can’t be stopped. The digital economy is not shrinking. AI adoption is not going away. Cloud, edge computing, Internet of Things, cybersecurity, healthcare, financial systems, logistics, education, and public services all depend on resilient digital infrastructure.

So the real question is not whether data centers will be built.

The real question is whether they will be built with communities or against them.

The Global Impact

The U.S. still has a meaningful lead in AI and data center infrastructure, but it is not guaranteed. IEEE Spectrum reported that more than half of upcoming global data centers are expected to be developed in the United States, with U.S. facilities generally larger on average than those in other countries. JLL also notes that the Americas represent about 50% of global capacity, with the U.S. accounting for about 90% of capacity in the region.

My view is that this gives the U.S. a roughly 8- to 12-month strategic lead in many parts of the AI infrastructure race. Maybe more in some places. Less in others. But it is not a decade-long cushion.

If we pause too broadly or curtail development without a path forward, we will fall behind other nation states who will not pause with us. They will build. They will subsidize. They will cut red tape. They will use infrastructure as a competitive weapon.

That does not mean we should bulldoze through communities. It means we need balance. Speed with transparency. Scale with accountability. Growth with trust.

Practical Advice: How Data Centers Become Better Neighbors

Here is what better looks like.

• Engage before opposition forms. Not after. Not when the hearing room is already packed. Early engagement should include residents, local businesses, schools, utilities, fire districts, law enforcement, environmental groups, and elected officials.
• Publish plain-language impact statements. Explain power, water, traffic, noise, taxes, jobs, emissions, backup generation, emergency response, and construction timelines in words normal humans use. Bonus points if the document does not require a PhD in acronyms.
• Design for the neighborhood. Use acoustic modeling, visual screening, landscaping, enclosed mechanical systems, traffic planning, stormwater management, and low-water cooling where appropriate.
• Create quantifiable community benefits. Workforce development, school grants, STEM programs, broadband improvements, road upgrades, emergency services support, and local hiring commitments should not be vague promises. They should be measurable.
• Show the math on utility impact. If the facility funds substations, transmission upgrades, onsite generation, or grid improvements, explain how that works. If ratepayer protection is part of the model, say it clearly.
• Keep showing up after approval. A good neighbor does not disappear after zoning passes. Ongoing community advisory boards, public reporting, and regular meetings with local agencies can help turn suspicion into partnership.

The Outlook: What Happens If We Get This Right

If we get this right, data centers can become a platform for community growth.

They can fund tax bases, support schools, modernize infrastructure, attract adjacent industries, create construction and engineering jobs, and strengthen digital resilience. They can accelerate cleaner power strategies, support workforce pipelines, and help communities participate in the next era of the economy.

If we get it wrong, the outcome is ugly. More moratoriums. More lawsuits. More political backlash. More delayed projects. More distrust. More misinformation. And yes, potentially more dangerous rhetoric.

Strongly curtailing data center growth would not just hurt operators. It would affect cloud capacity, AI innovation, healthcare systems, financial services, public-sector modernization, cybersecurity, manufacturing, logistics, and the broader economy. Digital infrastructure is now economic infrastructure.

Final Thoughts: The Industry Has to Show Up Differently

I recently posted on LinkedIn that our industry is at a fragile point, and that we need to work more closely with people to ensure violence is never the answer.

I got eaten alive.

People called me a bully. A "data center bro." They said we are building without repercussions, that we do not care about communities, and that we are only driven by money.

I do not agree with that characterization. But I do think we need to hear the emotion behind it.

The data center industry is different from traditional IT. It always has been. We are not just software, servers, and networks. We are construction, engineering, and power. We are water, building design, and land use. We are community impact.

That heightens our responsibility.

Being right on the facts is important. Being trusted may be even more important.

The next era of data center leadership won’t be defined only by who can build the fastest or the biggest. It will be defined by who can build the most responsibly, the most transparently, and the most collaboratively.

Because the best data center projects have to do more than pass inspection.

They must pass the neighbor test.