Making Daily Headlines · Page 7
Ohio's Data Center Boom Discovers That Neighbors Also Have Processing Power
· New York time
Ohio's rapid data center buildout has drawn opposition from many residents, including a lifelong Republican who has become a leading voice in the backlash. The issue has entered the midterm campaign, with candidates from both parties trying to address voters' concerns. Data centers support computing services, including the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence. Their expansion brings large projects into communities where residents must live with the practical consequences of construction and the demand for resources. A national promise of technological growth can look rather different when its physical form arrives near someone's home. The politics are not neatly sorted by party. A lifelong Republican leading the pushback complicates any easy assumption that support for business growth settles every argument about a particular development. Candidates from both parties now have reason to listen to voters who want answers about the pace and effects of the buildout. The industry can talk about the future in terms of computing capacity. Residents get to talk about the future in terms of their communities. Both are looking at the same large buildings, but only one group has to fit them into a daily landscape. That gives the campaign debate an unusually tangible feature: the cloud has a street address, and the neighbors would like a word.
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