OpenAI · U.S. · Democrats · NPR Technology
Kasey Hatch was surprised to learn she and her cousin agreed on data centers, despite having different political beliefs
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Hatch, who works in tech, designed a dashboard for people to see the levels of noise measured in the area near the Vantage data center in Sterling.
Key facts
- In Loudoun County alone, data centers generated about $1.2 billion in property tax revenue in fiscal year 2026, representing around 39% of the county's overall budget
- Data centers generated about $1.2 billion in property tax revenue in the 2026 fiscal year for Loudoun County
- In Wisconsin, a grassroots campaign sprang up last year to oppose a $12 billion hyperscale data center in the Madison suburb of DeForest that would cover more than 2 square miles
- A study led by Eric Bonds, a sociology professor at the University of Mary Washington, found that in 31 Virginia localities where there was an existing, approved or proposed data center
Summary
With striking speed, the widespread debate around data centers has become a fault line in American communities, cutting across political parties, splitting constituencies and forging unexpected alliances. In city halls and county commission chambers, east to west and north to south, people are squaring off against their local representatives. Data centers have "upended politics as we know it," says Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "People feel like they no longer have control over the technology, that worries them," West says. For this story, NPR traveled to data center hot spots and spoke to dozens of activists, politicians, developers and everyday Americans.