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The siting process is where AI infrastructure goes to stall. Before a kilowatt flows or a rack is bolted down, a data center requires local permits, and permits require community acceptance.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro drew a line: too many data center developers, he said, "don't care about our communities." A Gallup survey released in May gave the sentiment a number: seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area.
A seven-in-ten opposition rate reshapes permitting timelines and forces site selection back to the drawing board.
Where the industry has traditionally modeled risk in terms of power availability and grid interconnect, Shapiro's framing introduces a different variable: the relationship between a developer and the municipality it moves into.
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