Climate Activists Picket AI Companies Over Data Centers’ Water and Power Demands

The water and power needed to run AI data centers became a street-level issue in New York this week. Climate activists picketed OpenAI, Google and Amazon offices during Climate Week, pressing the companies over costs they say nearby communities are being asked to bear.

The protests began Monday evening outside OpenAI’s Manhattan offices. Groups then picketed Google and Amazon over the next two days. Climate Defenders and the Stop Funding Billionaires campaign organized the “unplug AI” week of action while advocates were in the city for Climate Week.

The concern they brought to Manhattan

Some protesters traveled from New Mexico, where Oracle’s planned Project Jupiter data center is contracted to OpenAI. The project was pitched locally as a job creator. Daisy Maldonado, a resident of the county where it is planned, says companies have not been candid about what the facility could mean for limited water supplies in an area facing a long drought.

The objection is about physical infrastructure, not just AI software. Data centers need electricity to run their equipment and water to help cool it; their power can also come from fossil fuels. Organizers want more pauses on new data-center construction, stronger protection for access to water and limits on fossil-fuel use.

From company offices to a conference keynote

The confrontation also reached an AI sustainability conference on Tuesday. Five protesters were arrested after disrupting a keynote on using AI to address problems with the energy grid. Activists called the conference’s framing “greenwashing”—presenting something as more environmentally friendly than they believe it is.

That clash exposed a difference in what each side was asking people to consider. The keynote focused on what AI might do for the grid. The protesters wanted attention on the resources consumed by the facilities that make AI possible. Adrosto de Silva, who traveled from New Mexico to the OpenAI protest, rejected the idea that data-center harms could be reduced at all.

“Regular people shouldn’t be left holding the bag for a bunch of billionaires and trillionaires to play Monopoly with our economy.”

Jonathan Westin, Climate Defenders and the Stop Funding Billionaires campaign

A protest backed by local permit fights

Those demands are not confined to a week of demonstrations. Local or county bans on data centers have passed in at least 18 states, according to The Guardian. New York also passed a statewide moratorium this summer. The measures show that arguments over water and power can reach decisions about whether projects go ahead.

Data Center Watch offers another measure of the pressure: it counted 45 U.S. projects worth $68 billion that local opposition blocked or delayed between April and June. That is the stated value of projects affected, not money shown to have been lost. A delay and a permanent block can have very different outcomes.

For the New Mexico protesters, the unresolved question is more immediate than a national project tally. They say Project Jupiter’s promised jobs have not been weighed honestly against its possible demand on scarce water. The New York actions put that local dispute before the companies associated with the buildout, without settling what the project’s water use will be.