Report: opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 US data center projects in Q1 2026 worth ~$130B; data center opposition groups doubled to 833 across 49 states
The authors found that data center opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects nationwide from January through March.
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Data Center Backlash Hits $130B in Blocked Projects in Q1 2026
Opposition groups doubled to 833 across 49 states, stalling or killing at least 75 data center projects worth $130 billion.
America's data center boom just slammed into a wall of local resistance. A new report finds that organized opponents managed to block or delay at least 75 data center projects across the U.S. during the first three months of 2026. The combined value of those stalled projects: roughly $130 billion.
The opposition movement is growing fast. The number of anti-data center groups has doubled, reaching 833 organizations spread across 49 states. That's nearly every state in the country pushing back against the infrastructure underpinning the AI and cloud computing explosion.
The scale of disruption is staggering. These aren't fringe efforts — they're organized campaigns successfully derailing massive construction projects. For hyperscalers and colocation providers racing to meet insatiable compute demand, community pushback is now a first-order business risk that no amount of capital alone can solve.