It's the issue du jour because of foreign influence. The situation in Phoenix is due more to poor zoning since the DC is right across the street from a residential area.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...
I've only heard about datacenter protests in the past 2 years. So perhaps what the authors warned about is happening now?
That article is two years out of date, and looking at nationwide electricity usage doesn't account for the local impacts of these data centers.
(* nb4 "it's summer": talking about price per kWhr)
Because... that's not how prices work. And certainly not energy prices, which have both significant capex requirements, spot-market pricing dynamics, and capacity headroom requirements.
1) their electricity bills rising
2) their land prices (read: rent) rising
3) actual fucking nutjobs in charge of these companies who can't seem to simply not say actual nutjob shit all the fucking time
4) entry level jobs disappearing
5) the obvious fact that "I am building the most powerful technology ever" means "the already-powerful people who own these technologies and companies are working to become vastly more powerful"
And I say this as someone who uses and loves using AI heavily across both my personal and professional life. It's better to grapple directly with the fact that people have very legitimate fears and concerns around this technology and the people who own it.