Facing pushback on data centers, tech giants are promising hosts more
money and fewer secrets
[October 22, 2026] By
MARC LEVY and KAITLYN HUAMANI
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.
Meta is always evaluating how well it shares information with
communities, said Lindsay Elin, Meta’s vice president of public policy
and external affairs. “As part of that work, we are reviewing our use of
non-disclosure agreements,” she said in a statement to the AP.
In a report this month that sharply criticized data center giants
including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, several Senate Democrats
said companies have used non-disclosure agreements to freeze out the
public. The report also said the companies aggressively seek state and
local tax breaks and do not cover the entire cost of the electric-grid
buildout needed for energy-hungry data centers.
Spending ramps up in host communities, along with skepticism
The dominant players in the industry — Amazon, Google, Meta, and
Microsoft — project they’ll spend more than $600 billion this year
combined on capital projects, primarily data center construction in the
U.S.
Even as the companies prepare to spend more to entice communities —
payments that some critics call “bribes” — Trump urged them in a social
media post Wednesday to pay people and communities a “dividend” if they
“want to make their Data Centers popular.”
“MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!! GREAT FOR THE U.S.A.,” Trump wrote.
Meta and Amazon said recently they will each spend $1 billion on
financial incentives to host communities in the coming years, on top of
millions they already spend to support schools, charities and job
training. Google says its investments in local programs in data center
communities will reach $1 billion by the end of 2027.
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Anti-data center demonstrators protest at the Pennsylvania state
Capitol, Oct. 6, 2026, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy, File)
 Microsoft has pointed to a couple
local tax breaks that it will forego. And Google recently said for
all of its new data center campuses, the company will pay full real
property taxes on the buildings and land.
The companies have known since last fall that community opposition
was becoming a serious problem.
Data center demand began driving up electric bills last year across
a 13-state electricity grid stretching from Illinois to New Jersey
and Maryland, angering ratepayers. The outcry led to promises from
the tech giants to pay the cost of the power infrastructure to feed
their data centers, while Microsoft rolled out its five-point
“Community-First AI Infrastructure” plan.
Data centers’ critics aren’t persuaded.
Sam Burleigh, who helped start Concerned Citizens of Montour County
in rural northern Pennsylvania to fight a potential Amazon-backed
data center project, said the company's commitments are
“propaganda."
“What I see is them realizing they have more resistance than they
ever dreamt of. And so now they have to find some way, some method
to break through that resistance,” Burleigh said.
Kathryn Hoffman, executive director of the Minnesota Center for
Environmental Advocacy, which has sued over two prospective Google
data centers, said she sees Google doing more public relations
outreach, but she doesn’t see it doing more to disclose critical
details about its plans.
Political stakes are rising
In an Aug. 18 memo, the Senate Republicans’ national campaign arm
crystallized the midterm election pressure on the tech giants.
It warned the tech sector that it must “fix the toxic brand of an
entire segment of the economy” or risk long-term fallout in
elections. That included addressing "who benefits, who pays, and why
a community should want one."
Drew Nations, a developer in North Carolina, said developers need to
aggressively address quality-of-life complaints from neighbors. That
includes shielding neighbors from noise and data centers from public
view so they aren't an eyesore, and they need to forego “corporate
welfare” such as the lucrative sales tax exemptions that nearly 40
states offer.
Those tax breaks leave regular people thinking, "'So you’re saying
that this multi-multi-billion if not trillion-dollar company gets
tax breaks and I don’t?'” Nations said.
Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon collectively reported more than
$300 billion in net income in their most recent fiscal year.
Spending to promote data centers has been on the rise. The Data
Center Coalition, a trade association whose members include the tech
giants, said it has spent more than $10 million running pro-data
center ads in 10 states on TV and elsewhere. Data center giant QTS
and a group that doesn’t disclose its donors, Build American AI,
also began ad campaigns this year.
Meanwhile, angry residents continue to flood once-sleepy municipal
board meetings, pressuring officials to reject data center
proposals.
More municipalities are passing data center moratoriums and Data
Center Watch, a project of AI security consultancy 10a Labs, said it
saw sustained local opposition to dozens of projects in the
April-to-June quarter, its latest reporting period.
Balaji Tammabattula, chief operating officer of BaRupOn, which
develops data center campuses, said the pressure of the midterms has
helped developers understand how crucial community support is to a
project’s success.
“It’s impossible to build without them,” he said.
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