Data Center Watch Counts 45 U.S. Projects Delayed or Blocked by Opposition

More than half of the new large-scale U.S. data-center developments tracked in the second quarter faced disruption from local opposition. Data Center Watch counted 45 projects, valued at $68 billion, that were blocked or delayed between April and June.

The finding turns a diffuse backlash into a measure of construction risk for the facilities needed to run AI systems. It is a count of projects affected by opposition, not a forecast that all of their investment will disappear: a delay or block can take different forms and project counts fluctuate from quarter to quarter.

Opposition is moving into permits and policy

The reported disputes are not confined to individual planning fights. Data Center Watch said communities are pursuing moratoriums on new construction, sometimes before developers can submit permit applications. It also counted roughly 30 statehouses that introduced or adopted rules touching data-center siting, electricity or water.

A national pattern with local pressure points

Data Center Watch, a project of AI intelligence company 10a Labs, identified 843 opposition groups across 49 states, excluding Hawaii. Its tally captures campaigns around specific facilities as well as broader moves to shape where data centers can be placed and what resource rules they face.

The report points to three ways resistance is gaining force

• Local moratoriums can halt or postpone new construction before a developer’s permit process begins.
• State-level rules are addressing the siting of facilities and their demands on electricity and water.
• Online organizing can scale quickly: a Tennessee petition against one project drew more than 500,000 Change.org signatures during the quarter.

The second-quarter total was lower than the 75 U.S. projects worth roughly $130 billion that Data Center Watch said faced opposition in the first quarter. But the later total still covered more than half of newly tracked large developments, suggesting the issue remains central to the pipeline rather than limited to a few exceptional proposals.

The backlash is no longer only American

For the first time in its two-year research history, the group also documented data-center protests outside the United States, including in Europe, Australia and South Africa. Those campaigns similarly focus on particular projects, planning approvals and resource use, according to the report.

That makes the immediate question less about whether AI developers want additional computing capacity and more about what happens before construction begins. Local governments are increasingly being asked to decide whether a proposed facility’s conditions, benefits and resource demands justify letting it proceed.