Data centers have faced a public hanging before going to trial. Proponents didn’t even have a chance to select a jury before their case was dismissed.
This is a textbook example of a public relations failure. Singularly focused on regulatory burdens and land use, data center owners forgot that every plot of land has neighbors. Some of them are people; some are cows. But data centers frighten all of them.
Big Data also figured that these centers are so critical that everyone would go along. They did not seek help in garnering public support or engage public affairs professionals to make their case in the skeptical and often hostile public square.
Midterm elections are in November. Both parties hate data centers, and politicians are ruminating about their positions on the issue. All they hear is yelling, and the rational voices that should inform government and citizens about how these centers can be responsibly built and have a positive impact are largely missing.
The debate is framed around land use, electricity, water, and noise. Those are legitimate concerns, and communities should express them. But the broader question is: “Do we use American assets to fuel our technological and economic growth, or do we hand our data, dollars, and trust to unfriendly nations?”
America is entering an unprecedented technological race. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, and other emerging technologies will shape our economy, national security, and individual freedom.
At the center of that race are data centers capable of storing, processing, and protecting the enormous amounts of information these technologies require.
China is not simply another competitor in the global technology race. The relationships joining technology, government, and the individual operate under a profoundly different model. Under the Chinese Communist Party, there is no individual privacy, free expression, or personal autonomy — only the interests of the state.
Technology in an authoritarian system is an instrument of government power. Personal information can become surveillance, and AI can become a tool of control. Information is strategic intelligence that can be used to advance military and economic capabilities.
China sees our personal information as a tool of war. It is also using data centers to fuel its expensive hegemony. That should strike fear in Americans as well as the companies creating and developing America’s digital infrastructure.
Keeping critical computing capacity and sensitive data in the United States is not merely an economic development strategy. There is a profound difference between a country where technology exists to empower individuals (us) and one where technology is harnessed to empower the state (them).
America’s data centers sit at the intersection of those two futures.
Communities should not surrender their right to ask tough questions about development. Data center proponents need to accept responsibility for their impact on surrounding infrastructure while offering to improve it. It’s a give-and-take process, like any other local policy issue.
But so far, the only public narrative has been the “take” and not the “give.”
Since many U.S. counties are resource-insecure due to aging and insufficient grids, data centers can bring reliability to the power grid if they are designed with this in mind.
If we cannot provide the computing capacity needed for American innovation, companies and researchers will look elsewhere. AI and increased data flow aren’t going away. Capital follows infrastructure, data follows capacity, and technological leadership follows data.
The choice is not simply between a data center and open land. It is increasingly between American infrastructure governed by American laws and foreign infrastructure governed by systems that do not share our values.
Where are data center owners’ public commitments to protect Americans? Where is the obligation to embrace responsible, positive growth? Where is the explanation that the physical infrastructure of the digital age must be built here, where we own and control it? Why are data center owners not funding young people at tech schools or working with Mike Rowe’s Work Ethics Scholarship Program, as these centers will provide thousands of jobs for electricians, plumbers, and construction workers?
The answer is simple — they are asking for help from local regulators and self-serving politicians rather than connecting with the public affairs community that has the expertise to craft and deliver messages that can make a difference.
Data centers have an opportunity to make a case to the American public about how these facilities can provide jobs, improve national security, strengthen global tech leadership, and upgrade municipal services.
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America should not outsource its freedom. Data centers need to reach out to public affairs professionals, and to quote a phrase rampant on social media — “seek help!”
The global race for technology is also a race over who controls it, where it lives, and what value it serves. Data center owners can determine our position in that race. They just need to speak with Americans first.
Kerri Toloczko is director of public affairs for Proven Media Solutions and a former commissioner on the Congressional U.S-China Economic Security Review Commission. Susan Powell is director of business accounts for Proven Media Solutions and a cybersecurity marketing and communications expert.