The rapid growth of data centers during the AI boom has been a dominating narrative of 2025—and, in many instances, not a popular one.
Across the country, communities have pushed back against data centers planned for their cities and states. Some have even turned to online petition sites to raise awareness and voice collective opposition to such projects. One site, the popular platform Change.org, said it has seen a significant spike in data center-related petitions in recent months.
Change.org saw at least 113 petitions that mentioned data centers in 2025, totaling around 50,000 signatures, the platform shared with Fast Company.
It’s not clear if that figure includes multiple petitions about the same data center project. These petitions also simply mention data centers—both for or against. But a cursory search shows that the vast majority were opposed to them.
Volume increased as the year progressed
For Change.org, the topic is new: In all of 2024, there was just one petition regarding a data center, in April.
No other petitions mentioned data centers until a year later, in April 2025, according to Change.org. Then, they began to tick up: Fewer than five petitions appeared each month until August, and then 12 were started in September, 37 in October, and 24 in November.
And December looks to be even higher. As of Monday, users have created 28 data center-related petitions this month.
One petition, titled “Stop Data Center at Former Landover Mall Site,” was created in June, concerning a data center in Landover, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. It has more than 20,000 signatures, with many supporters calling out how data centers use immense energy and water, which often means higher utility costs for residents.
“Say ‘NO’ to the construction of ‘Project Tango’ AI data center in Palm Beach County,” begins another petition, which has more than 7,000 signatures and was started earlier in December. That petition was just one form of opposition against “Project Tango,” a proposed 200-acre AI data center complex in Florida.
At zoning hearings, residents have raised concerns about the project’s water consumption, environmental impacts, utility rate hikes, and potential noise.
Another petition, titled “Stop Data Centers in Hobart, Indiana — Protect Our Community,” has nearly 2,500 signatures. There have been multiple proposals to build data centers in Hobart throughout 2025; recently, at the end of November, the city reached a deal with Amazon to develop a data center there.
That Change.org petition was created by a group called No Data Centers Hobart Indiana, which has a presence on Facebook and comprises more than 4,000 members. Angelita Soriano, a leader of that group, has recently filed a lawsuit, along with three other Hobart homeowners looking to overturn the city’s actions to green-light the Amazon project.
“This lawsuit is our effort to keep our government accountable and to defend Hobart families, homes, water, and our environment,” Soriano said in a statement. “Residents shouldn’t be ignored or deprived of their rights just to fast-track a massive industrial data center development in the heart of our community, right next to our schools, hospitals, and homes.”
“We need to slow it down”
In some cases, community opposition is having a real impact.
Between late March and June, 20 data center projects, representing about $98 billion in investments, were blocked or delayed in the United States, according to a November study from Data Center Watch, a project from the AI security and intelligence firm 10a Labs.
These were instances in which local opposition was specifically reported to have played some role.
To Miquel Vila, an analyst at the Data Center Watch project, community backlash to data centers has become an expected part of the development process. “Before, local opposition was more of an anecdotal possibility,” he said. “Now, it’s becoming a core feature of development . . . in the same way issues like land, energy, and water are taken into account.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont recently said that he will push for a moratorium on AI data center construction to “give democracy a chance to catch up” to the surge that has largely been unregulated.
“There is a whole lot about AI and robotics that needs to be discussed, needs to be analyzed,” Sanders said in a video posted to X. “But one thing is for sure. This process is moving very, very quickly, and we need to slow it down. We need all of our people involved in determining the future of AI, and not just a handful of multibillionaires.”