This week’s Zoning In shows just how quickly the rules around data center development are changing. From moratoriums and rejected projects to lawsuits, tougher NDA policies, and new requirements around community benefits, public opposition is increasingly driving public policy. Massachusetts may offer a glimpse of what comes next, with new rules requiring community benefit agreements and effectively giving host communities a greater say over whether projects move forward. Unless the industry takes the bull by […]

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Milldam Public Relations’ President, Adam Waitkunas recently  joined Loudoun County Economic Development Executive Director Buddy Rizer and Data Center Frontier Editor Matt Vincent for a discussion on one of the most significant challenges facing the rapidly expanding data center industry: community trust. The Data Center Frontier podcast, “The Next Data Center Constraint: Trust,” examines how community acceptance and political durability are increasingly influencing where—and whether—new data center projects get built. As Waitkunas and Rizer discussed, […]

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This week’s biggest story wasn’t a new data center announcement—it was New York becoming the first state in the nation to impose a statewide moratorium on large-scale data center construction. If there was any doubt that community opposition has evolved into a major political issue, this week erased it. The ripple effects are already being felt: Palm Beach County rejected a major AI campus after a marathon, 12-hour public hearing, while residents packed meetings from […]

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Perhaps the most telling story this week remains the ongoing fallout from the Stratos project in Utah. After previously suggesting project opponents were tied to the Chinese government, investor Kevin O’Leary publicly retracted those claims, acknowledging he had no evidence to support them. Coming on the heels of his recent admission that the project rollout was mishandled, the episode has become a cautionary tale for an industry already facing a growing trust deficit. Rather than […]

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This week’s Zoning In highlights a troubling trend for the data center industry: opposition continues to accelerate across the country. A new report from Data Center Watch found that at least 75 projects representing more than $130 billion in investment were delayed or canceled during the first quarter of 2026 alone—already surpassing the number of construction setbacks reported during all of last year. At the same time, the number of organized opposition groups has more […]

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