ATLANTA — Data centers are a financial boon to communities, according to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, which is pushing back on concerns about their impact on the environment, on utility bills and on their neighbors.
The pro-business organization is launching a messaging campaign that extols the jobs and property tax revenue that data centers provide while asserting that their impacts through water and energy use are not as significant as many believe. The Chamber’s new Georgia Digital Infrastructure Alliance includes industry leaders, utility representatives, policymakers and community members.
Chris Clark, the Chamber president and CEO, said the group will begin briefing policymakers statewide in September. The goal, he said, is “to be transparent, to make sure that we have responsible development and that we show the benefits to communities because obviously there’s a lot of backlash and a lot of negative PR right now.”
Polling suggests the public is souring on data centers.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 61% of Americans opposed the construction of new data centers in their area this summer, up 12 percentage points from the spring. The summer survey found opposition across party lines, with 69% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans opposing new local data centers.
The rising negative sentiment comes less than three months ahead of an election that will determine control over the state and Congress.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, said at a Georgia Chamber event in early August that “we need a pause” on new data centers.
Rick Jackson, her Republican opponent, said at that same event that data centers produce so much property tax revenue that they can eliminate property tax bills for everyone else in at least 70 counties. Communities should get to choose whether to let one be built, he said.
In early April, Macon news station 13WMAZ reported that Jackson said he understands data centers because he invested in one in Texas.
Elsewhere, Republicans who once championed data centers are beginning to see them as a political liability.
Late last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, was touting data center investments. Then, in early August, he halted approvals for new data centers pending audits of their power and water use and their impact on neighbors.
His Democratic opponent had been rising in the polls while attacking him on the issue, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
President Donald Trump has argued that more data centers are necessary to win an artificial intelligence race against China. But he also suggested recently that data centers need “a little public relations help,” according to multiple news reports.
Clark said the Georgia Chamber is pushing back with facts. Data centers use less water than a decade ago, he said, adding that in Georgia they are paying to build the energy infrastructure that will deliver power to them.
He challenged a central premise about the data center boom: that it is driven by AI.
“A lot of what we’re building out right now is to handle your Facebook posts, your medical records, your bank transactions,” he said.
Yet “AI” is in the name of the company behind the largest data center announced for Georgia so far. Project Camellia near Savannah, which is expected to need 3.2 gigawatts from Georgia Power, is for OpenAI.
The tech industry has been responding to concerns about water use.
OpenAI says its new data center will use a closed-loop cooling system, which reduces water consumption by reducing or eliminating discharge and evaporation. Other companies have announced similar systems.
However, closed-loop systems require more energy, and energy generation involves water.
Chris Manganiello, the water policy director for the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said state records show significant water lost to evaporation at power plants.
In 2023, for instance, Plant McDonough, a 2.5 gigawatt facility in Cobb County fueled primarily by natural gas, withdrew an average of 10 million gallons of water a day from the Chattahoochee River, he said. It returned a quarter of that water.
Research indicates data centers are consuming a lot of water.
“The exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has driven the rapid global expansion of data centers, raising serious concerns about their environmental impact — particularly water use,” said an academic article published earlier this year.
Trade-secret protections and security concerns restrict what the public can know about data center water consumption, said the paper in AGU Advances, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Geophysical Union. But the paper added that available information suggests data centers rank among the top 10 water-consuming industrial or commercial sectors in the country.
Many Georgians are concerned about more than water.
Amy Sharma has been traveling around the state to attend town halls about proposed data centers.
The executive director of Science for Georgia said she and others are concerned the AI boom will turn into a bust, leaving communities on the hook for half-built or abandoned data centers.
Local leaders should require developers to post a surety bond to pay for redevelopment should a project go bankrupt, she said.
She disagreed with Clark’s sanguine outlook on protections for residential electricity ratepayers, pointing to a lack of legislation.
Last year, the state Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power, did agree to the utility’s plan for a rate freeze, but the plan excludes “reasonable and prudent” costs related to storm damage and will be in effect for only three years. Then, during Georgia’s legislative session earlier this year, Georgia Power opposed a bill that would have made it illegal for the company to pass on costs for expanding the power grid to serve data centers for the long term. The bill was then weakened by amendments and did not pass.
And Sharma noted that a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in May that data centers are paying nothing toward the cost of new natural gas pipelines. Much of the additional generating capacity that Georgia Power is building to meet data center demand will be fueled by natural gas.
Public opinion will likely influence how big a welcome mat Georgia lays out for data centers, especially this November when voters head to the polls.
Sharma said she has witnessed growing opposition across ideological lines.
At one town hall, she listened as a man complained that the government first wanted to force everyone to take a COVID-19 vaccine and now was pushing data centers. She said she also heard someone wearing Bernie Sanders apparel complain about data centers.
Clark said many people are simply misinformed. When communities have questions, they should get transparent and responsible responses, he said. “I think a lot of what we’re seeing right now is both misinformation, disinformation, old information, and just the fear of the unknown.”
Manganiello said the industry and local leaders have brought this on themselves.
“Some data center developers and local leaders have not been entirely transparent about proposed projects,” he said. “When residents can’t get their basic questions answered, they go out looking to fill the holes.”
Manganiello welcomed an initiative by the Chamber to share more information before a project is approved.
“The question will be whether or not that is actually what happens,” he said.
Sharma predicted that Clark’s initiative would ignite more opposition.
“We’re advocating for a community’s right to choose the best path forward for themselves,” she said, sounding like Clark.
“But the best path forward must provide transparency, an open and democratic decision-making process, sufficient power and water, and a surety bond,” she said. “So I guess we’re also advocating against data center misinformation.”