The boom in data-center construction is one of the most important economic developments in recent history, helping to power the promise of AI-enabled growth. Yet opposing data centers has rapidly become a unifying cause across a broad coalition of some of the nation’s most ardent left-wing activist groups, who have made it their mission to disrupt this innovation at all costs.
Organizers for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) link data-center growth to rising utility costs and concentrated Big Tech power. “Anti-imperialist” groups portray AI as a tool of surveillance and militarization. Anti-ICE activists argue that data centers enable immigration enforcement and expand domestic surveillance.
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Together, these strands are converging on the proliferating facilities as a target, making data centers a potent tool for drawing everyday Americans into the web of left-wing activist groups—and creating opportunities for “direct action” against increasingly vital infrastructure.
The first wave of opposition to data centers lacked the more overtly anti-technology framing that would define later stages of the movement. In Virginia, the nation’s leading hub for data centers, early opposition was led by local environmental groups and historic preservation advocates.
The missing link between that early opposition and today’s pan-progressive resistance was the 2017 launch of the “Latinx” activist group Mijente’s No Tech for ICE campaign, during the first Trump presidency. At the time, the group was investigating how ICE accessed local data, including sources like Chicago’s gang database. In 2019, the group launched a report identifying companies such as Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, Palantir, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft as part of the data infrastructure supporting immigration enforcement.
Data centers were seen as the physical instantiation of this infrastructure. As Mijente organizer and MediaJustice program head Jacinta González put it, “Where are they storing all of the surveillance? It’s data centers.”
In fact, data centers are general-purpose infrastructure, useful not just in immigration work but by virtually any industry or government agency, for any digital purpose. That, in turn, makes them an easy target for numerous progressive grievances.
At a June 21 DSA Ecosocialism virtual event, DSA member and Occupy Wall Street veteran Astra Taylor described data centers as “the backbone of this technology and of this industry” and as physical sites that give communities a place to organize and “push back on the billionaire agenda.” Taylor called the anti-data-center cause “one of the biggest political opportunities that I’ve personally ever seen,” maintaining that the opposition is “taking this moment by storm.” A hugely influential figure on the modern Left, Taylor serves on the Council of Advisors for Progressive International, the “worldwide anti-capitalist organization” founded in 2018 by the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Sanders Institute and the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 to oppose President Trump and a rising global Right. She also co-founded the Debt Collective—a self-described “debtors’ union” that advocates the abolition of debt, though the organization is structured as a fiscally sponsored project of the Sustainable Markets Foundation— and is married to indie rock icon Jeff Mangum of the quintessential hipster band Neutral Milk Hotel.
Across the country, DSA chapters are taking up the data center cause. In Seattle, that has meant calls for a statewide moratorium on AI development, targeted at Microsoft and Amazon facilities in particular. In the Washington, D.C., region, Metro DC DSA has focused on blaming facilities in Maryland and Virginia for rising utility costs while advocating for community control of electrical infrastructure. A similar effort is underway in Arizona, where DSA activists are pushing to take over Tucson Electric Power, which has shown a willingness to work with data-center developers.
In New York State, these campaigns have found tangible political backing and influenced policy discussions and outcomes. At the DSA Ecosocialism event, State Senator Kristen Gonzales noted that the legislature had approved a bill establishing a one-year moratorium on data-center construction, allegedly to shift power away from Big Tech. In Ithaca, the local DSA is actively opposing a TeraWulf data center project—an opposition effort that has won the backing of New York State Representative Anna Kelles. Now that DSA has gained representation on Ithaca’s city council, members have said they intend to “electorally punish” those who supported and enabled the project, while continuing to push for a moratorium and pursuing legal action against TeraWulf.
Honor the Earth, a former environmental-justice organization that has become an all-purpose activist front, has developed a data-center tracker that highlights proposed sites as well as key victories against data-center expansion. The group’s data centers campaign echoes the “Mask Off Maersk” supply-chain mapping efforts run by the Palestinian Youth Movement, a group that HTE fiscally sponsors.
Honor the Earth racked up some of the most significant victories against data center development between 2023 and 2026. The group worked closely with Data Center Watch, which reported that, from May 2024 to March 2025, “$64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition.” By the first quarter of 2026, that number had reached $130 billion.
The campaign has focused on rallying support against data centers via online seminars and providing activists with organizing tools. At a recent gathering of “anti-imperialist” organizations within the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, an Honor the Earth leader said that the organization has successfully led campaigns resulting in tribal bans and moratoria on various data center development projects.
Bayan, a far-left Filipino organization known for its longstanding support of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines, is currently tracking a deal between the State Department and the Philippine government to open 4,000 acres of land to mineral extraction for the “silicon stack.” That’s part of the U.S. Pacific Silica initiative, which is focused on semiconductors and AI supply chains. While the project could present a significant economic opportunity for the Philippines and even break China’s control over AI supply chains, Bayan is opposed. Member Nieves Delgado warned, “the Philippines is becoming a hub to secure the AI supply chain for the U.S. because whoever controls technology maintains military and economic domination in the world.”
The neo-Luddites on the activist Left have not yet resorted to the kind of sabotage that marked resistance to the Industrial Revolution. But similar inflammatory rhetoric has emerged and is continuing to spread. For example, D.C.-based activist Arianna “Afeni” Evans has publicly called for “white folks” to burn down AI data centers. Separately, Imani Bashir appeared to justify a lone-wolf drive-by shooting at a city council member’s home, where the perpetrator reportedly left a note reading “no data centers,” arguing that such actions become the only option when elected officials “play in our faces.” As organizers take to social media to post these videos and rally support for their anti-data center campaigns, have they paused to consider where the countless hours of content they produce ultimately reside?
To the activists behind these campaigns, data centers are not just critical digital infrastructure. They have become symbolic targets into which to pour broader anxieties about capitalism, technology, and power. That all-purpose role, more than problems with the technology itself, is what makes the movement against the facilities politically potent.
Policymakers and businesses should welcome public scrutiny and listen to criticism. But they must also learn to distinguish legitimate concerns from radical ideological opposition that risks undermining America’s long-term technological competitiveness. At a time of intensifying global competition in AI, maintaining American leadership is not just an economic priority; it’s critical to ensuring the industry remains guided by principles of transparency, accountability, and the rule of law rather than coercive state interests.