Everything you’ve been wondering about data centers, explained

Our Take

Credit to Kara Swisher for assembling a panel that actually spans the fight — a consumer advocate, a climate scientist, a Virginia organizer who's been in the trenches for years, and a mayor who has to answer to voters when the substation hums all night. That mix matters because this isn't an abstract AI-ethics debate anymore. It's zoning boards, water utilities, and PILOT agreements signed behind closed doors long before neighbors ever see a site plan.

The through-line we keep hammering on: by the time a community finds out what's coming, the deal is basically done. Tax abatements, water allocations, and transmission upgrades get locked in under NDAs and shell-company LLCs, and residents are left reacting to a done deal instead of shaping it. That's not a hypothetical 'can good design win support' question — it's a transparency problem first, an environmental one second. If people don't know the megawatt draw or the gallons-per-day before groundbreaking, there's no real consent, just a fait accompli with a ribbon-cutting.

Whether cleaner power or better guardrails can shift public opinion, as the panel debates, probably depends less on engineering and more on who gets a seat at the table before contracts are signed. If you want to see what's already landed near you and who approved it, check our facility map, and if you're staring down a proposal right now, our take-action page has the questions to start asking your local officials today.