Until a few years ago, most people had never heard of a data centre. Now these warehouse-sized buildings, which power everything from web searches to streaming video and the AI models behind ChatGPT and Claude, are becoming a flashpoint in American politics just days before the midterm elections — with both Republicans and opposition Democrats coming out against their rapid expansion.
There are now roughly 12,250 data centres worldwide, according to tracking firm Data Center Map, up sharply from around 8,000 in 2021. The US leads by a wide margin in both site count, with 4,767 facilities, and total computing capacity, followed by China and then Europe, where the UK and Germany lead but risk falling further behind as the gap widens. The facilities are also getting bigger: the world's largest operational data centre, run by China Telecom in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, covers roughly one million square metres, equivalent to about 140 football pitches — and even larger sites are under construction, including Elon Musk's xAI-linked Colossus 2 campus, which will use 41 methane gas turbines that activists say could "significantly increase" local air pollution.
More Power Than a Country
Collectively, data centres worldwide are now thought to consume more electricity than the whole of France, pushing up carbon emissions and straining local power grids in ways some experts warn could raise energy prices. Cooling systems can also draw heavily on local water supplies. Some 16 US states have proposed laws to ban or temporarily halt new facilities, and the issue has become unavoidable in the run-up to Tuesday's midterms, putting opponents on a collision course with President Trump, who has dismissed the pushback as a "sick conspiracy" even as public anger grows. Opposition has also emerged in Mexico, France, Indonesia and the UK.
Supporters counter that data centres are critical to national security and the development of AI, and that they boost local economies through investment, tax revenue and construction jobs — though a recent Brookings Center report found they create fewer permanent jobs than industry advocates often claim, since highly automated "hyperscale" facilities owned by companies like Amazon and Microsoft need relatively few staff to run once built.
The tension between those competing claims — jobs and tax revenue on one side, power bills, water use and noise on the other — is unlikely to resolve soon, especially as this week's earnings from Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft made clear that all three companies plan to keep building at the same breakneck pace regardless of the political temperature.
