- The U.S. government uses “eminent domain” to force landowners to sell their properties to make way for new data center infrastructure.
- Power companies look to the government as a last resort to acquire land needed for power transmission projects.
- Americans are unhappy with the massive construction of new AI data centers
It’s no secret that there is a big divide between AI companies looking to expand their capabilities and the general public who don’t want a data center built at home, especially in the United States.
A recent poll indicates that as many as 7 in 10 Americans are opposed to building data centers, with environmental concerns and reduced quality of life cited as the main reasons.
But AI companies and energy companies are reportedly turning to “eminent domain” — the government’s ability to seize private property from landowners without needing the owner’s consent.
Government seizes private property
Eminent domain has typically been reserved for critical infrastructure projects, including energy and transportation, alongside government projects and utilities.
Eminent domain was also used to seize land for the construction of the Minuteman nuclear missile deterrent system across the United States during the Cold War.
Building on a similar patriotic tone expressed during silo building in the 1960s, President Donald Trump has declared that the development of AI technologies is crucial to the national security and economic security of the United States and, therefore, capabilities must be increased.
As data centers require enormous amounts of electricity to operate, they require dedicated power lines and infrastructure connections. In order to build this infrastructure, power companies contact local landowners and offer to purchase the land on which the power lines will be built. However, if landowners refuse, power companies can ask the government to use its power of eminent domain.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the government to provide the landowner with “just compensation,” usually based on the fair market value of similar property in the local area.
Data centers accounted for about 10 to 20 percent of U.S. electricity consumption in 2024, and that figure has grown significantly since then. Some data centers under construction will consume more energy than some U.S. cities, such as the Hyperion campus in Meta, Louisiana, which is expected to consume three times as much energy as the city of New Orleans.
Some states have been more prolific in their use of eminent domain, with Georgia residents forced to sell their properties to Georgia Power’s transmission project – a capacity expansion that will primarily benefit data centers. Other Maryland landowners have begun erecting signs on their property reading, “No Eminent Domain for Corporate Profit.”
Opposition to data centers is quickly becoming an issue of people versus government, with many complaining that AI companies are becoming filthy rich without providing any benefit to the average American working class — a problem that Sen. Bernie Sanders hopes to remedy with an AI sovereign wealth fund that would require AI companies to offer up to 50% of their shares to fund projects benefiting Americans.
Via Fortune
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