The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived

On Election Day, Peter Hubbard was one of two Democratic candidates who took a decisive—and surprising—victory in Georgia. Hubbard was elected to the Georgia Public Service Commission, the body that regulates the state’s electric utility. It’s the first time Democrats have won statewide seats in statewide elections in Georgia in nearly two decades.

Georgia has become a hot spot for data center development over the past few years: Some research indicates it’s one of the fastest-growing markets for data center development in the country (thanks, in part, to some generous tax breaks). It’s also now a nexus for organizing against those same data centers. Community opposition to data centers, a new report finds, is on the rise across the country. And red states, including Georgia and Indiana, are leading this wave of bipartisan opposition. WIRED's Guide to How the Universe Works Your weekly roundup of the best stories on health care, the climate crisis, new scientific discoveries, and more. SIGN UP By signing up, you agree to our user agreement (including class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and acknowledge our privacy policy. The new report was released by Data Center Watch, a project run by AI security company 10a Labs that tracks community opposition to data centers across the country. The company has been keeping eyes on this topic since 2023, and released its first public findings earlier this year. (While 10a Labs does offer risk analysis for AI companies, report author Miquel Vila says that the Data Center Watch project is separate from the company’s main work, and is not paid for by any clients.) But this week’s report finds that the tide has turned sharply in the months since the group’s first public output. The second quarter of this year, the new report finds, represented “a sharp escalation” in data center opposi

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