Something is stirring in Georgia that goes far beyond the quiet hum of computer servers. For years, data centers have been quietly transforming rural and suburban landscapes, bringing with them the promise of high-tech jobs and steady tax revenue. But now, as more of these massive facilities are proposed, the public mood is shifting. The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has noticed and is fighting back. The pro-business organization recently launched a new initiative called the Georgia Digital Infrastructure Alliance, bringing together industry leaders, utility representatives, policymakers and community members. Its goal is to convince a skeptical public that data centers are not the environmental villains or utility-bill bogeymen they have been made out to be. Chris Clark, the Chamber’s president and CEO, said the group will begin briefing policymakers across the state in September. He acknowledged the tension directly: “We want to be transparent, to make sure that we have responsible development and that we show the benefits to communities because obviously there’s a lot of backlash and a lot of negative PR right now.” The Chamber’s argument rests on familiar economic promises: data centers create jobs, expand the property tax base, and often pay for the very infrastructure that powers them. But the campaign is launching into a climate where many people no longer see these facilities as quiet neighbors, but as looming industrial complexes that consume huge amounts of electricity and water without making life better for the people living next door.
The shift in public opinion has been sharp and bipartisan. Polling from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that 61 percent of Americans now oppose construction of new data centers in their area, a jump of 12 percentage points in just a few months. That opposition cuts across party lines: 69 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Republicans said they do not want new data centers nearby. In Georgia, where the race for governor is heating up, data centers have become a genuine campaign issue. Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee, told a Georgia Chamber event in early August that the state needs a pause on new data centers. Her Republican opponent, Rick Jackson, pushed back with an economic argument, saying data centers generate so much property tax revenue that they could eliminate property tax bills for everyone else in at least 70 counties. He insisted that communities should have the freedom to choose whether to host one. But his own record has been complicated: a Macon news station reported that Jackson said he invested in a data center in Texas, raising questions about whether he is too close to the industry. The political winds are shifting beyond Georgia too. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, who not long ago celebrated data center investments as a triumph of economic development, abruptly halted new data center approvals pending audits of their power use, water consumption, and impact on neighboring communities. President Donald Trump has maintained that data centers are essential to winning the artificial intelligence race against China, but even he acknowledged recently that they need “a little public relations help.” These are not the words of politicians confidently riding a wave of popularity; they are the words of leaders watching an issue become politically radioactive.
The Georgia Chamber, for its part, insists that much of the public fear is based on misinformation and outdated assumptions. Clark argued that data centers today use less water than they did a decade ago, and that in Georgia they are actually helping to pay for the new energy infrastructure needed to serve them. He also challenged the widely held belief that the current boom is being driven primarily by artificial intelligence. “A lot of what we’re building out right now is to handle your Facebook posts, your medical records, your bank transactions,” Clark said. That framing is meant to make data centers feel less like mysterious AI monsters and more like the unglamorous backbone of everyday digital life. Still, the name “AI” is hard to escape. The largest data center project ever announced in Georgia, a facility called Project Camellia near Savannah, will require 3.2 gigawatts of power from Georgia Power and is being built for OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. That single project is expected to consume an enormous amount of electricity, perhaps more than several cities combined. The contrast between Clark’s reassuring words and the reality of these projects illustrates just how complicated the data center debate has become. Even if data centers are not all about AI, the ones that generate the most concern are often precisely the ones tied to the AI boom. The industry is aware of the criticism and has begun to respond, with OpenAI saying its new facility will use a closed-loop cooling system that reduces water consumption. But environmental advocates point out that closed-loop systems require more energy, and energy generation, especially from natural gas, involves water. It is a loop that is hard to escape.
The water issue is particularly acute in Georgia, where rivers like the Chattahoochee serve multiple purposes: drinking water, recreation, agriculture, and power generation. Chris Manganiello, water policy director for the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said state records show significant amounts of water are lost to evaporation at power plants. He cited Plant McDonough, a 2.5-gigawatt natural gas facility in Cobb County, which in 2023 withdrew an average of 10 million gallons of water a day from the Chattahoochee River and returned only about a quarter of that water. This matters because data centers are driving the need for more electricity, and more electricity means more water withdrawn from already-stressed rivers. Academic research is increasingly sounding the alarm. A paper published this year in AGU Advances, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Geophysical Union, linked the rapid global expansion of data centers to “serious concerns about their environmental impact, particularly water use.” The paper noted that trade-secret protections and security concerns restrict what the public can know about data center water consumption, but that available information suggests data centers already rank among the top ten water-consuming industrial or commercial sectors in the country. That is a staggering claim for an industry that was virtually invisible to most people a decade ago. And while closed-loop cooling systems may reduce direct water use at the data center itself, they do not account for the water consumed by the power plants generating the electricity to run them. In a state like Georgia, where natural gas is expected to play a major role in meeting new electricity demand, the water footprint of a data center can be much bigger than the facility’s own cooling towers suggest.
Beyond the environment, there is growing anxiety about who will pay for all this growth. Amy Sharma, executive director of Science for Georgia, has been traveling the state to attend town halls where residents question proposed data centers. She says many people are worried that the AI boom will turn into a bust, leaving communities stuck with half-built or abandoned data centers and huge debts. She believes local leaders should require developers to post a surety bond that would pay for redevelopment if a project goes bankrupt. Sharma also disagrees with the Chamber’s reassuring view of ratepayer protections, pointing out that there is almost no legislation safeguarding residential customers. Last year, the state Public Service Commission agreed to a Georgia Power rate freeze, but that freeze excludes “reasonable and prudent” costs related to storm damage and only lasts for three years. During Georgia’s legislative session this year, Georgia Power opposed a bill that would have made it illegal for the company to pass on the long-term costs of expanding the power grid to serve data centers. The bill was weakened by amendments and ultimately did not pass. Even more concerning, Sharma noted that a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in May that data centers are paying nothing toward the cost of the new natural gas pipelines needed to fuel all that additional generating capacity. In other words, the economic burden of building infrastructure for data centers could fall heavily on the shoulders of ordinary Georgians, many of whom are already struggling with rising utility bills. It is no wonder that opposition to data centers is crossing ideological lines. Sharma said she has witnessed a man complain that the government first tried to force everyone to take a COVID-19 vaccine and was now pushing data centers, while at another event, someone wearing Bernie Sanders apparel voiced the same anger. When people on opposite ends of the political spectrum agree on an issue, politicians start paying attention.
What happens next will depend on whether trust can be rebuilt. Clark believes the negative sentiment around data centers is largely the result of misinformation, disinformation, outdated facts, and simple fear of the unknown. He says the Chamber’s new initiative will be transparent and will demonstrate the benefits to communities that are willing to host these facilities. But Manganiello, the riverkeeper, is less forgiving. He argues that some data center developers and local leaders have not been entirely transparent about proposed projects, and when residents cannot get their basic questions answered, they go looking to fill the holes themselves. That is how rumors start, and how legitimate fears become entrenched. Manganiello welcomed the Chamber’s initiative as a promising step, but with an important caveat: “The question will be whether or not that is actually what happens.” Sharma is even less optimistic. She predicts that the Chamber’s messaging campaign will ignite more opposition, because it will not address the deeper issues of local control, fairness, and long-term accountability. She echoed Clark’s language about communities having the right to choose the best path forward, but added that the best path requires transparency, an open democratic decision-making process, sufficient power and water for everyone, and a surety bond to protect the community if everything falls apart. As Georgia voters head to the polls in November, this debate is no longer just about zoning and property taxes. It is about what kind of future communities want to build, who gets to make that choice, and whether the promise of progress is real or just another bill waiting to be paid. The data centers may be full of machines, but the fight over them is deeply human.