Resisting and Rethinking Big Tech’s Data Center Development Strategies: Knowledge Production within the Transnational Epicenter

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Movements as Responses to Crises

Abstract

Data center development, now foundational computational infrastructure, is expanding rapidly as Big Tech corporations and governments race to lead in artificial intelligence. This expansion has sparked growing resistance from communities and environmental groups, who argue that data centers create unlivable conditions, including the pollution of watersheds that serve as primary sources of drinking water.
This paper presents preliminary research on “Data Center Alley” in Northern Virginia, the global epicenter of data center development and community resistance. Facilities in this region rely on water-based cooling systems drawing from the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, which feed Chesapeake Bay—the largest estuary in the US and a critical ecological and economic resource supporting 3,600 species.
Since October 2024, the Rappahannock River holds legal rights recognized by the Rappahannock Tribe’s constitution, including the right to sue to block data center development. However, rights-of-nature litigation has not been the dominant strategy. Instead, communities and organizations have relied on public hearings, lobbying, zoning challenges, and environmental impact reviews. Between January 2023 and June 2025, community opposition across the US blocked or delayed an estimated US$162 billion in data center projects (Data Center Watch 2025a, 2025b).
This paper argues that regulating data center development has emerged as a new lever of local state power for holding Big Tech accountable. Opposition movements remain fragmented, ranging from “not in my backyard” concerns to human rights frameworks, environmental justice claims, and Indigenous cosmologies underpinning rights of nature. Increasingly, corporate accountability movements are aligning with environmental and Indigenous struggles to reshape local governance over data center development. While communities have demonstrated their capacity to slow projects, trans-local coordination is necessary to prevent corporations from relocating impacts elsewhere. Beyond resistance, communities also have opportunities to democratize data center development through cooperative ownership, shared decision-making, and community wealth-building models.

Author

• John G. Dale, George Mason University