Thomas, who received reelection final week, factors to the native pushback in opposition to the proposed Prince William Digital Gateway, which might put greater than 30 knowledge facilities on the sting of a nationwide reserve positioned within the north of the state. A gaggle of house owners have challenged the undertaking in court docket, and a decide voided zoning in August, which briefly halted development.
“The little man lastly received, which hardly ever occurs in any trade, not to mention the place the Magnificent Ten play,” he says, referring to the US’s greatest tech firms. “I believe that rallied folks politically in Virginia.”
Thomas, like Hubbard, additionally says he sees a number of his constituents involved about how knowledge facilities will have an effect on their electrical energy invoice. “Persons are simply much more cost-conscious,” he says. Power payments, Thomas says “are one thing that was saved comparatively static for plenty of years.” However in Virginia, electrical energy load from knowledge facilities are helping to drive up utility bills, Thomas says.
Each Thomas and Hubbard are Democrats, however opposition to knowledge facilities, the Information Middle Watch report stresses, has been completely bipartisan. And a few nationwide Republican politicians, together with Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Thomas Massie, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have begun to talk out in opposition to them.
“Folks you’ve got to pay shut consideration to your native metropolis, county, and state approvals of information facilities and demand your water and power payments be protected!!!” Greene, who has criticized knowledge middle enlargement for months, posted on X on November 7.
Large tech firms need to date made few public statements about pushback to knowledge middle initiatives. Whereas some, like Meta, present public-facing information on their knowledge facilities, others within the trade lean closely on nondisclosure agreements when constructing new knowledge facilities, offering little to no data to communities about these initiatives—together with which tech firms could also be concerned.
