Big Tech wants more data centers. Residents in this New Jersey city said not here.

Big Tech wants more data centers. Residents in this New Jersey city said not here.

Residents in New Brunswick, New Jersey, protest a potential data center on February 18.The Climate Revolution Action NetworkAnother possible data center has been scrapped after community objections.This one was in New Jersey, where locals and environmental activists protested the plan.Data centers have become a flash point nationwide as AI companies scramble to power their products.Like a modern-day Paul Revere, Ben Dziobek's voice rang across t…

Proposed data center in New Brunswick, New Jersey, denied by local authorities

A park to be built instead

The Revolt That Killed a $1 Billion Data Center: How New Brunswick Residents Stopped Big Tech in Its Tracks

In a story that is rapidly becoming a template for communities across the United States, residents of New Brunswick, New Jersey, successfully forced the cancellation of a massive data center project that would have transformed their city’s skyline and strained its infrastructure. The episode underscores a growing tension between the insatiable demand for computing power — driven by artificial intelligence workloads — and the communities being as…