Kenneth Glad
Huge computing facilities are drawing greater scrutiny over electricity, water and public infrastructure. Local disputes now shape decisions about where new projects can proceed.
Artificial intelligence may arrive through software, but increasing computing capacity means constructing industrial campuses filled with servers, cooling equipment and electrical infrastructure. In Scotland, the scale of proposed development has turned what might once have been a specialist planning issue into a much broader public dispute.
A July resolution from the Scottish National Party’s national council, reported by The Guardian, put the number of hyperscale projects at 24 in various stages of planning. Together, the proposals could require more than one and a half times Scotland’s peak electricity consumption.
One of the most prominent projects is a proposed 600-megawatt facility at Auchtertool, north of Edinburgh. Around 1,600 objections had been submitted against the development, while opposition has also emerged around projects near Airdrie and Larbert. Concerns range from electricity and water use to noise, emissions and the sheer size of industrial buildings proposed near existing settlements.
Lesley Backhouse, a local councillor involved in opposition to the development boom, described the scale of the proposals as “extreme overdevelopment.”
Public pressure has already brought regulatory changes. Large facilities above 50 megawatts now face additional government notification requirements, while environmental impact assessments are being required in certain circumstances.
Electricity demand changes the equation
Energy has become central to the argument because the newest data centers can require power on a scale rarely associated with individual commercial developments.
Britain already has substantial competition for grid connections, encouraging some developers to consider dedicated generation or backup systems. Those arrangements can include gas-fired power plants and large numbers of diesel generators, shifting part of the debate from whether enough electricity exists to how that electricity will be produced.
An analysis by the nonprofit organization Foxglove, reported by The Guardian, examined two proposed facilities in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. Foxglove estimated that they could produce more than 4.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually when fully operational, compared with 3.9 million tonnes attributed to ExxonMobil’s British operations in 2023. The two sites would require a combined 1.3 gigawatts of power and included plans for on-site gas generation.
Texas offers another indication of the possible scale. Governor Greg Abbott’s office said ERCOT was considering more than 474 gigawatts of requests to connect to the state’s main electricity grid, more than five times its record peak demand. The governor’s office said roughly 90 percent of those requests came from data centers. Many applications may never become operating facilities, making the connection queue an indication of developer interest rather than a forecast of actual consumption.
Abbott subsequently ordered an audit of data center projects before further connections can proceed.
Voters are influencing development policy
The infrastructure debate is increasingly visible at the ballot box.
A March survey published by Gallup found that 71 percent of Americans opposed having an AI-related data center constructed in their area. Nearly half, 48 percent, said they were strongly opposed. Majorities opposed local development across political affiliations, age groups, income levels and levels of education.
Utah provided a striking electoral example in June. State Senate President J. Stuart Adams lost his Republican primary after months of controversy surrounding a major data center proposal he had supported. The Salt Lake Tribune described Adams as entering the election burdened by fallout from the project, making the result one of the clearest signs that infrastructure policy can become an electoral liability.
New York has gone further through statewide policy. Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order in July establishing a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, temporarily pausing state environmental permits while officials develop a new regulatory framework.
She said development threatened to “hike up utility bills” and “deplete our natural resources.”
Employment is another part of the local calculation. The Wall Street Journal reported that about 1,500 workers were involved in building the Stargate facility in Abilene, Texas, while roughly 100 full-time employees were expected to operate it after completion.
Economic benefits remain difficult to measure
Technology companies have a clear reason to seek additional capacity. More advanced systems require enormous numbers of specialized processors, while wider adoption of coding tools, automated assistants and other services increases demand for computing resources.
What remains uncertain is whether the wider economic gains will ultimately match the infrastructure being constructed.
Data centers can generate construction contracts, tax revenue and investment while they are being built. Their long-term employment footprint, however, can be modest compared with factories, offices or other developments occupying similar amounts of land. Electricity requirements may also bring additional generation, transmission and grid costs into negotiations between developers, regulators and local authorities.
The stakes extend beyond individual communities. Spending on semiconductors, power equipment and computing facilities has become an important part of the investment plans of major technology companies. Suppliers, utilities and financial markets are therefore increasingly exposed to expectations that demand will continue growing.
For residents near proposed sites, those financial connections can seem remote. Planning meetings instead focus on measurable changes close to home: additional electricity infrastructure, water requirements, industrial land use, backup generation and the number of permanent jobs likely to remain once construction crews leave.
From Scotland to Texas, proposed data centers are running into obstacles that money alone cannot solve. Local opposition, tougher environmental scrutiny and political resistance are starting to shape where projects can go ahead.
Sources: The Guardian, Gallup, The Wall Street Journal, The Salt Lake Tribune, Office of the Texas Governor,
