Google wouldn’t call it a data-center ‘backlash,’ but ‘there are often community questions to be addressed’

With host communities across the U.S. turning against their gargantuan data centers, America’s technology giants are promising to take fewer taxpayer handouts, keep fewer secrets or shower more money onto the communities willing to allow the server warehouses.

The new raft of promises from the world’s richest companies comes as anti-data center sentiment has become a potent issue in the midterm elections, with control of Congress and 36 governors’ offices on the line.

Despite backing from President Donald Trump , the data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom have become politically toxic.

Community opposition that blocks municipal permits has become a bottleneck, and tech giants could face even more challenges if voters next month elect more public officials who are skeptical of data centers.

The tech industry says it has gotten the message.

In addition to ramping up financial incentives, officials with Google and Meta said in interviews with The Associated Press they are trying to address mistrust by being more transparent with communities where they would like to build.

Companies are also making pledges to reduce their impact on the environment and offering assurances that data centers will boost local property values — all while maintaining AI is a positive force for the American economy, despite its skeptics.

Tech giants pledge more transparency Devi Thomas, Google’s global head of community development and engagement, told AP that she wouldn’t call resistance to data centers a “backlash,” but that “there are often community questions to be addressed.” “Early public consultation is increasingly a very important part of the process.

We have done as much as we can to make sure communities are involved early on,” Thomas said.

Earlier this month, Amazon rolled out its “Amazon Data Center Commitment,” including pledges to improve the environmental rating of its backup diesel generators and disclose more about its data centers’ energy and water use.

It also said — as have Microsoft and Google — that it had stopped requiring government officials to sign non-disclosure agreements.

The use of non-disclosure agreements has meant people in host communities may know little or nothing about a project until it shows up on a municipal board’s voting agenda.

Besides that, tech companies often have hidden their involvement in a project behind a code name and developers who do the legwork with local governments, critics and other developers say.

That practice “raises people’s suspicion as to what’s truly happening,” said Anita Verma-Lallian, a developer with data center projects in Arizona.