By Doug Kelly:
America has always been a nation of builders. We laid the railroads, strung the power lines, poured the interstates, and wired the internet. Every one of those projects drew a crowd of skeptics and protests, and every one of them paid off in jobs, growth, and American strength.
This weekend, organizers say more than 120 protests will take place across 37 states against data centers. Communities should ask hard questions about big projects in their backyards, but five facts should not get lost in this debate.
- America is in a neck-and-neck race with China for artificial intelligence (AI) leadership. The country that wins this race will gain decades of advantages in national security, economic competitiveness, and influence on the globe’s digital infrastructure. Data centers are the factories of the AI era and one of our strongest competitive advantages against China. But Beijing has made building data centers a national mission. We cannot win this race while handcuffing the very infrastructure that gives us our strategic edge.
- Data centers are powerful local economic engines. From construction and permanent jobs to large, lasting flows of tax revenue, data centers are drivers of local economic growth. For example:
- The construction phase alone puts thousands of local electricians, plumbers, operating engineers, and welders to work for years, and those paychecks flow to local small business from diners to suppliers.
- In rural Richland Parish, Louisiana, tax revenue tied to one data center funded teacher bonuses as high as $50,000.
- In Loudoun County, Virginia, data centers now generate nearly half of the county’s property tax revenue and return about $26 for every $1 in services they use, which has let the county lower its property tax rate ten years running.
- A recent Brookings study of roughly 770 data center facilities across 93 counties found total private employment climbed four to five percent over five to six years and wages rose three to four percent, with those gains reaching existing workers, not just new hires. Construction employment climbed 11 percent and information-sector jobs 22 percent, roughly 2,000 to 4,000 additional jobs in a typical county.
- Data centers are a lifeline for midsize and rural communities. Many midsized and rural communities have lost factories, power plants, paper mills, mines, and other large employers that once supported local families and funded public services. Data centers can be a revitalizing force in these counties. For example:
- Coshocton County, Ohio, lost a paper mill that employed more than 200 people and a power plant that once employed 600. A multibillion-dollar data center is now breathing new jobs and investment into that community.
- Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, on land cleared years ago for a failed manufacturing effort, is now home to a multibillion-dollar Microsoft AI campus that employed nearly 10,000 tradespeople to build it.
- Amazon’s $12 billion investment in northwest Louisiana will create 540 full-time jobs at wages roughly 50 percent above the state average, support some 1,700 additional positions, and put as many as 1,500 people to work during construction.
- Voters Back AI Energy Growth When Families Are Protected. Communities and data center developers agree: Families and small businesses should not subsidize the power, water, or roads a large facility requires. Developers should pay their own way, bring their own power, and rate structures should protect the customers already on the grid.
In fact, American Edge Project polling finds broad bipartisan support for expanding our energy capacity to meet AI’s demand, with majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans on board, and that support climbs when people see the AI payoff of new cures, stronger national security, and an edge over China. Voters also want clear ratepayer protections, and many companies are doing just that.
- To win, America needs one national playbook, not fifty. Right now, we have fifty different AI playbooks, with more than 1,800 AI-related bills introduced across the country and climbing. That patchwork handcuffs the very innovation edge we need. Winning requires a single playbook that leverages America’s strengths: 1) the private sector needs the freedom to innovate and compete; 2) the federal government must set wide, sensible guardrails and clear away the thicket of red tape that slows us down; and 3) states should expand their energy and transmission line capacity, invest in their workforce, and accelerate AI adoption to keep us ahead of China. Do that, and AI becomes America’s modern-day moonshot, giving us decades of advantage over our authoritarian adversaries while helping modernize our grid, strengthen our workforce, and unlocking the full promise of AI.
The bottom line. Community concerns matter and should be addressed. But we can protect families and build boldly at the same time. The real danger is putting our shovels down. Every data center we refuse to build hands an edge to China. It matters which country builds the future and which American communities share in it. The places that build will lead. The rest may spend the next decade wishing they had.