Pushback Against AI Data Centers Grows, From a Bus Tour to a Kansas Town

The data centers that run artificial intelligence have become one of the rare issues that unsettles voters across the political spectrum. In recent weeks, reporting from NBC News, NPR and CBS News has traced resistance from conservative activists, rural residents and suburban homeowners alike, even as President Trump and many governors champion the buildings as engines of investment.

On Oct. 5, a group called Humans First wrapped up a five-week “AI Data Center Revolt” bus tour with stops outside Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia in the San Francisco Bay Area, NBC News reported. The tour covered more than 8,000 miles and over 35 stops. The group, led by the veteran conservative organizer Amy Kremer, began as a coalition of left- and right-wing activists before becoming conservative-only. It says it is not against AI or data centers, but it objects to projects built without local consent, to developers who hide behind shell companies and nondisclosure agreements, and to the role of data centers in rising electricity prices. Kremer told NBC News she strongly disagrees with Trump, who has called AI a “golden goose.”

The economic pull is real, especially in small towns. In Osawatomie, Kansas, a city of about 4,000 people near Kansas City, developers have targeted a long-vacant industrial park for a midsize data center that they say could bring as much as $10 billion in buildings and equipment, NPR reported. City manager Bret Glendening told NPR the project could generate about $40 million a year in taxes and fees, more than doubling the city’s budget. Some residents, though, worry it would strain local water and electricity, and others, NPR reported, simply say they do not have enough information yet.

Where projects are already running, complaints can be concrete. In Southaven, Mississippi, residents near a power plant revived to supply Elon Musk’s xAI data centers have sued over what they describe as near-constant noise and vibration, CBS News reported. Mississippi’s governor, Tate Reeves, has called xAI’s roughly $20 billion investment in the area the largest economic development project in the state’s history. CBS News cited a Gallup poll finding that most Americans oppose building data centers in their own communities.

Across the country, cities and counties have moved to block or delay projects over water use, power demand, noise and broader concerns about AI, NPR reported, describing data centers as something liberal Democrats and MAGA Republicans may agree on.

The case for building is straightforward: supporters say the facilities bring large tax payments and new investment to places that have lost their industrial base. The open question, which local officials across the political map are now confronting, is who pays for the power and water they require, and whether communities get a real say before the bulldozers arrive.