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The rapid proliferation of services powered by artificial intelligence, ranging from the genuinely useful to the frivolous to the unnecessary, has a common element: the need for vast amounts of electricity and water for the data centers that make them possible.

In the last two years, hundreds of so-called hyperscale data centers have been built across the U.S., straining the ability of utilities to provide them with the power they need to run and water to keep them cool. In New Carlisle, Indiana, for instance, an Amazon-owned complex of data centers operated by Anthropic already needs at least 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power hundreds of thousands of individual homes, according to The Atlantic. When completed, the sprawling facility will use as much power as two Atlantas, the story estimates. Until recently, such facilities, typically in rural areas or small towns, were generally well received, seen as a sign of local progress despite the fact that they create relatively few jobs or economic benefits.

But amid spiking household electricity rates–up nearly 10% this year, largely due to data centers–things are starting to change. More communities are realizing how much they strain existing infrastructure, and across the U.S., including in Arizona, Virginia and Ohio, there’s local pressure to slow or halt new data centers. A

© Forbes