Digital Realty, QTS, and NTT Data warn the data center industry is doing a poor job of combating local opposition; 24+ US projects were blocked in January alone
Companies set to increase advertising spending this year to defuse growing public opposition to vast projects
Context & Ripple Effects
Local resistance had already become a material siting constraint: towns were challenging proposals over electricity and water use, while a prior tally found 17 US projects blocked or delayed in Q2 2025.
Digital Realty, QTS, and NTT Data’s response reframes community outreach as a delivery risk rather than a peripheral public-relations issue, as January’s blocked projects add to that earlier pattern.
First-order effects
- Digital Realty, QTS, and NTT Data plan to spend more on advertising to counter opposition, making local acceptance a more explicit part of project development.
- The blocking of more than 24 US projects in January immediately raises uncertainty around where and when proposed capacity can be built.
Second-order effects
- Developers and their customers face greater pressure to secure local support earlier, since permitting and community opposition can disrupt construction schedules independently of demand for capacity.
- More spending on outreach adds a project-development cost and may favor operators able to absorb longer, more complex approval processes.
Third-order effects
- If opposition continues to block projects at this rate, data-center growth will increasingly be constrained by local social license and infrastructure governance, not solely by capital or customer demand.
- The industry may need to compete on credible local-benefit and resource-use commitments; advertising alone may prove insufficient where concerns over power and water remain unresolved.
The trend: AI infrastructure is becoming utility-like development, with community consent emerging as a core execution constraint on data-center expansion.