Despite the intense public backlash against data centers over the past 12 months, all of the tech industry’s biggest companies have committed to building out additional AI infrastructure over the next year. This includes OpenAI partner Microsoft, which on Tuesday announced a so-called “community-first” approach to AI infrastructure.
Microsoft’s announcement, coming just one day after Mark Zuckerberg said Meta would launch its own AI infrastructure program, is not unexpected. Last year, the company announced plans to spend billions of dollars to expand its AI capabilities. What’s a little unusual is the commitment the company is making now about how it will handle that ramp-up.
On Tuesday, Microsoft pledged to “take the necessary steps to be a good neighbor in the communities where we build, own, and operate data centers.” The company says this includes plans to “pay for it in its own way” to avoid high local electricity bills at the construction sites. Specifically, the company says it will work with local power companies to ensure that the rates it pays fully cover its burden on the local power grid.
“We will continue to work closely with the utility companies that set electricity rates and the state commissions that approve rates,” Microsoft said in a statement. “Our goal is simple: to ensure that the cost of electricity to service data centers is not passed on to residential customers.”
The company also promised to create jobs in the areas it lands and minimize the amount of water needed for the center’s functioning. The use of water by data centers is clearly a controversial topic, with data centers being accused of causing significant problems with local water supplies and causing other environmental problems. Job promises are also relevant, given persistent questions about the number of short-term and permanent jobs such projects typically create.
It’s very clear why Microsoft feels it needs to make these promises now. Data center construction has become a political flashpoint in recent years, sparking intense backlash and protests from local communities. Data Center Watch, an organization that tracks anti-data center activities, currently observes as many as 142 different activist groups in 24 states organizing against such movements.
This backlash is already having a direct impact on Microsoft. In October, the company abandoned plans to build a new data center in Caledonia, Wisconsin, after “community feedback” was overwhelmingly negative. Meanwhile, in Michigan, local residents recently took to the streets to protest after the company planned a similar project in a small downtown town. On Tuesday, around the same time Microsoft announced its “good neighbor” pledge, an editorial in an Ohio newspaper (where Microsoft is currently developing multiple data center campuses) slammed the company and its peers, blaming them for climate change.
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Concerns extend to the White House as well. In the White House, enhancing AI has become one of the Trump administration’s key tenets. On Monday, President Trump specifically promised on social media that Microsoft would make “major changes” to prevent Americans from seeing higher energy bills. President Trump said the changes will “ensure that Americans don’t have to ‘pick and choose’ their electricity consumption.”
That means Microsoft now knows it’s fighting a wave of negative public opinion. It remains to be seen whether the company’s new guarantees of jobs, environmental stewardship and lower electricity prices will be enough to turn the tide.
