TL;DRAnti-data center groups doubled to 833 across 49 US states and disrupted 75 projects worth $130bn in Q1 2026, matching all of 2025 in three months.
Grassroots opposition to data center construction in the United States has reached a scale that is starting to reshape where and whether the AI industry can build. A new report from Data Center Watch, a tracker maintained by AI research firm 10a Labs, found that activists blocked or delayed at least 75 projects worth a combined $130 billion in the first quarter of 2026. According to NBC News, that is the most disruptions recorded in a three-month period since the group began tracking in 2023.
The pace represents a structural shift, not a spike. The total number and value of projects disrupted in Q1 roughly matched the full-year total for 2025, according to the report. The number of active anti-data center groups more than doubled from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 by March, spread across 49 states, with Maryland, Ohio, and Texas hosting the most.
The opposition is bipartisan and locally driven. Communities are organising around electricity costs, water consumption, and noise, the same concerns that have already forced Denmark to pause all new grid connections for data centres and prompted the EU to ask households to cut peak electricity use because AI data centres are straining the grid.
