What CIOs need to know about community-first AI infrastructure
Data center construction is growing, leading infrastructure providers to adopt a community-first AI infrastructure approach, aimed at building trust and long-term viability.
As AI demand fuels the need for data center construction, more local communities are taking notice and taking action.
Backlash is rising. From the streets of rural Utah, where residents have taken a stand against the Stratos Data Center, a pet Project of Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, to the outskirts of Chile's capital, where Amazon is planning to locate a new data center complex. It's a scene playing out more often across the U.S. -- most recently in Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and Oregon. And businesses are listening to community pushback, even if it doesn't change their plans.
Some examples include the following:
In Utah, O'Leary agreed to cut the proposed 40,000-acre Stratos development by roughly half, leaving open space around the Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area.
In Chile, residents argued that Amazon's planned data center should be blocked because the permit did not consider the potential construction of a high-voltage power line needed to feed the site. The argument failed.
A newly elected board of supervisors in King George, Va., contested a $6 billion Amazon project. It is one of several projects in Virginia currently facing scrutiny.
Wherever the location, residents' concerns remain the same: that data centers will overtax local electricity grids and water resources, causing spikes in electric bills and increasing problems in drought-prone areas. Protesters are also concerned about rising heat and noise pollution, and some express anger at tax breaks given to large corporations that drain local resources and create few long-term jobs.
Seven out of 10 respondents in a recent Gallup web survey opposed data center construction in their local area. Americans who favor the projects cited economic benefits. Those opposed focused mainly on environmental concerns.
More than a dozen states and local municipalities have introduced legislation that would slow the spread of data centers if passed. While some local municipalities have enacted temporary moratoriums, no state has successfully enacted a permanent ban or statewide moratorium against data centers.
What community-first AI infrastructure means
Community-first planning involves considering the effects a data center will have on a community, its residents and resources. By working with local leaders and community members, companies hope to minimize the negative effects while creating the greatest possible benefits -- including job creation and tax base enhancement.
Seeking community input early can also tailor the project. Because many are located in agricultural areas -- where water resources are crucial -- data centers are designed with closed-loop water systems, so they use less water than the average household.
Applied Digital, a digital infrastructure provider based in Dallas, approaches community-first AI infrastructure by selecting sites in a way that benefits the grid operation of the region, investing in technology such as closed-loop water systems and running the most efficient infrastructure possible.
Microsoft also touts its own community-first approach, including five commitments to be a "good neighbor."
We have to show up early, listen carefully, answer questions directly and correct misinformation with facts.
Wes CumminsCEO, Applied Digital
What community opposition means for CIOs
The public scrutiny around data center development underscores the fact that businesses cannot build long-term infrastructure without long-term trust, said Wes Cummins, CEO at Applied Digital, in an email.
He said his organization makes community engagement part of the development process. In the beginning, residents' questions were grounded in curiosity about what was being built and what it would mean for the community. Lately, communities often respond not just to uncertainty, but to inaccurate assumptions about issues like water use, power rates and local impacts, Cummins said.
"That makes our responsibility even clearer. We have to show up early, listen carefully, answer questions directly and correct misinformation with facts," Cummins said.
AI infrastructure is a real-world execution challenge for businesses, IT teams and vendors. Local communities must permit, power, build, cool, finance, operate and support data center capacity. If those pieces are not managed well, it affects timelines, Cummins said.
The backlash does not reduce the need for AI infrastructure; it raises the bar for how it gets built. Companies expanding their AI initiatives should plan earlier and choose partners who can secure power and build capacity responsibly, transparently and in a way that earns trust over the long term, Cummins said.
Why Microsoft is taking this approach now
In early January, Microsoft announced its community-first AI infrastructure initiative, which outlined five commitments to residents of the communities where it locates its data centers.
According to Microsoft's blog, the company will make five commitments to be a "good neighbor" in the communities where they build, own and operate data centers:
Electricity.Microsoft plans to make its data centers more efficient and collaborate with utility companies to ensure that the electricity costs of servicing its data centers aren't passed on to residential customers.
Water. Microsoft's data centers will minimize water use and replenish more than they use. The company will invest in local water systems and water replenishment projects, and optimize water use in cooling systems.
Job creation for residents. Microsoft plans to invest in partnerships to train local construction workers and expand its Datacenter Academy program.
Increase local tax bases. Microsoft will not seek tax abatements and will support policies that invest its additional tax dollars in services important to the local community.
Investment in local AI training and nonprofits.Microsoft will partner with schools, colleges, businesses and libraries to offer AI training at all age levels.
What this means for the future of AI infrastructure
As the demand for AI, cloud computing and digital transformation grows, so does the need for more capacity, faster processing and data centers.
"It's clear that AI has potential and provides a value proposition, so the industry keeps investing in it. But these data centers are big and the easiest places to build data centers have already been taken," said Sebastien Jean, CTO at Phison Electronics.
Tech companies must be good corporate neighbors if they want to continue to receive permission to enter a community. In the future, if it becomes apparent that data centers harm communities, changes made at the political or legal levels could make it difficult for data centers to operate, Jean said.
Instead of being reactive and trying to make changes after they've affected community members, tech companies are choosing to think of the community, not just about delivering technology results, while planning, he said.
"We have to really consider the impact we're having on communities and put some real thought into being a good citizen and community member," Jean said.
Community-first infrastructure approaches should be collaborative, where community groups can reach out to companies with their concerns, he said. Organizations can deliver on their sustainability promises using the same systems-based approach that technology companies regularly use.
Practical implications, risks for enterprise IT leaders
Historically, site selection was an engineering exercise focused on securing land and power. Now, local protests could result in zoning moratoriums and stalled projects that translate into severe supply chain unpredictability for AI workload allocations. This would make community friction the new bottleneck in the AI supply line, said Roshan Shah, co-founder and CEO of Decimal Digital.
"In the race to capture enterprise compute value, time to market is everything. If an infrastructure provider fails to secure community alignment, deep community alignment, before the first spade hits the dirt, the resulting legal and regulatory friction there could freeze a project for six to 12 months or longer," Shah said.
Every IT leader today faces pressure to deploy AI faster, but AI doesn't exist without the physical infrastructure. So, when projects are delayed or challenged, the effects flow downstream to enterprises waiting for more compute capacity. As a result, industry leaders are learning that community acceptance is now a critical path item, just like power, fiber and permitting, Shah said.
As a result, forward-thinking IT leaders will question their infrastructure providers not only about megawatt capacity or price, but about community alignment. Without a trust layer, there is no speed-to-market, Shah said.
Organizations may start to adopt strategic shifts in due diligence to mitigate risk. These can include the following:
Developers have to stop treating these protests as noise and start treating them as a signal.
Roshan ShahCo-founder and CEO, Decimal Digital
Diversified footprints. Organizations shift from single mega campuses to a distributed model.
Agile partnerships. Organizations partner with mid-market developers working to right-size facilities into smaller communities.
Sustainability as resilience. Community integrations and closed-loop water systems are no longer PR optics; they are requirements for operational resilience.
Still, the sudden wave of local protests across the country is not a rejection of technology.
"When change happens at this velocity, it naturally triggers an instinctive fear over local resources like power grids and water tables," Shah said. "To protect this critical innovation and timelines, developers have to stop treating these protests as noise and start treating them as a signal."
With this mindset shift, organizations can start to shift their community outreach strategies, too.
"Being a good neighbor today means pausing the generic corporate PR templates, showing up to face the communities and using transparent engineering data to prove that while the technology is changing fast, we are committed to safeguarding their communities and that remains absolute," Shah said.
Key questions CIOs should ask providers
Time to market is important when developing data centers -- especially if an organization is trying to capture the value of the current interest in accessing compute interest, said Brad Johnson, utilities engineering expert at Bentley Systems. Organizations need developers with a history of delivering projects on or ahead of time.
"The ones who succeed at that are the ones who have figured out how to have this positive interface with the communities that they're seeking to build in," Johnson said.
It's important to look for an organization that can provide examples where positive public consultation maintained or accelerated the timeline from initial concept to permit, he said.
Technology companies must understand that they're operating in a utility environment, not a tech company environment. They need positive interactions within the community to deliver the project on time and maintain support for future changes or expansion.
"The good data centers -- the ones really worth getting behind and entrusting -- are the ones that figure that out," Johnson said.
Editor's note: This was originally published in February 2026 and was updated to reflect news about community backlash and protests against AI data centers.
Julie Hanson is a freelance writer who has reported on local news across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Dig Deeper on IT applications, infrastructure and operations
