Where the world is building data centers, and pushing back

After hundreds protested a proposed data center near McMaster University, Hamilton's city council voted in June 2026 to advance a one-year construction moratorium, in what a councillor described as the first such municipal pause in Canada.

Citing grid constraints, Quebec restricted new power procurement for large data center projects beginning in 2024, effectively halting new large-scale development as Hydro-Quebec reported little spare transmission capacity at its high-demand industrial sites.

Residents and environmentalists in Queretaro have organized to defend springs and farmland from data center water demands. The state says household supply is protected, while noting that water allocation falls under federal jurisdiction.

Five months after the historic 2024 flood that put roughly 80 percent of Eldorado do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul under water, Scala Data Centers announced Scala AI City, billed as Latin America's first data center district, on a 7 million square meter flood-free tract beside the BR-290 highway. The initial phase is about R$ 3 billion at 54 MW, with potential to scale toward thousands of megawatts. In December 2024 the city council passed a law that widened the urban perimeter and fast-tracked licensing, with no public consultation or published impact studies. Investigations by Intercept Brasil and the Pulitzer Center found most residents were unaware of the project; the state prosecutor began demanding environmental and neighborhood impact studies in early 2026, and a state legislative subcommittee opened a review citing the complex's projected power draw.

The Anace Indigenous community in Ceara occupied the state environmental agency in August 2025 and filed a federal complaint to halt an $8.7 billion TikTok and Casa dos Ventos data center on land they claim, arguing they were never consulted and that the project, sited in a drought-prone region, would drain scarce water and power. It is described as the first pushback of its kind in Brazil.

Residents of Cerrillos in Santiago fought Google's roughly $200 million second data center for years over its draw on the strained Central Santiago aquifer during Chile's long drought; a 2020 referendum and court pressure first pushed Google toward air cooling. In February 2026 a Chilean environmental court partially reversed Google's 2020 permit, ordering it to re-evaluate the water component for the effects of climate change. In March 2026 Google paused the project and said the permitting process would restart from scratch with a redesigned, less water-intensive cooling system, keeping the same site but giving no new timeline.

Microsoft's planned Quilicura data center near Santiago faced community opposition and permitting delays over water in a drought-stricken area. Microsoft later committed not to draw water from nearby sources, winning approval from most local bodies.

As Uruguay endured its worst drought in 74 years and Montevideo declared a water emergency, thousands marched against Google's planned data center under the slogan 'it is not drought, it is pillage,' and activists sued to force disclosure of its water use. The project, first designed to draw millions of liters of drinking water a day, was approved only after Google agreed to switch to air cooling.

In March 2026 Denmark's state-owned grid operator Energinet imposed a temporary pause on new large-load grid connection agreements after requests to the grid swelled to roughly 60 GW, nearly nine times the country's 7 GW peak demand. Data centers were the main driver, accounting for about 14 GW of the queue, as hyperscalers targeted Denmark's clean, cheap power. The pause, initially set at three months, remained in effect past its window while Energinet built a prioritization framework, and the energy minister floated putting data centers at the back of the queue behind Danish customers. A major project in Aalborg was abandoned for lack of grid capacity.

A MAYOR RESIGNED RATHER THAN PRESIDE OVER IT. Florence Laurent, mayor of Etrechet near Chateauroux, quit on 15 September 2026, after four of her council colleagues had already resigned, over Google's plan for a roughly 500 MW data centre on 195 hectares of the Ozans business zone. The land sale was decided not by the commune but by Chateauroux Metropole in June 2025; the resigning officials cited PFAS, visual impact, traffic, property values and the way local views were handled. A residents' collective, Ozans dire non, is organising against it. Google's subsidiary Tricolore Computing plans a first building in 2028-29 and seven to nine more from 2031. The next step people can take part in: grid operator RTE's public consultation on about EUR 300 million of grid reinforcement, 28 September to 22 November 2026. The exact date of the first four resignations differs between reports (10 September vs 14-15 September).

A CANDIDATE TOOK AMAZON TO COURT. In Wissous, south of Paris, municipal candidate Philippe de Fruyt was challenging an extension of an Amazon data centre in court during the March 2026 campaign, Reuters reported, with the hearing still pending. It was one of at least ten French towns where Reuters found candidates running against data centres. Which court, what the challenge argues, when it will be heard and who won the local election are not established here; the court docket or the candidate would settle it. SOURCING: a single Reuters report, read through syndicated copies.

THE PREFECTURE APPROVED IT; A CANDIDATE RAN AGAINST IT. In January 2026 the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture approved developer Segro's data centre on a former H&M warehouse site in Le Bourget, north of Paris, on condition of further noise and air-pollution studies and a public meeting. In the March 2026 municipal campaign Green-list candidate Sofiane Milous promised to reverse it, arguing it would bring few jobs to residents; outgoing mayor Jean-Baptiste Borsali backed the project, and residents petitioned over its closeness to schools. Reuters counted candidates in at least ten French towns running against data centres. Who won in Le Bourget, and whether the council has moved against the permit, is not established here. SOURCING: Reuters, read through syndicated copies.

Marseille, France's biggest internet landing point with around 18 submarine cables, has drawn a dozen data centers and a growing revolt. The collective Le nuage etait sous nos pieds, formed with La Quadrature du Net, fights new projects over water drawn from the public supply and returned hot to the Mediterranean, and over electricity that pits data centers against electrifying the port, buses, and hospitals. The collective and La Quadrature du Net also object to data centres taking over buildings inside the city, and contested Digital Realty's MRS5 project during its public consultation. THE STATE APPROVED MRS5 AND A NEIGHBOURING TOWN PERMITTED MRS6. The inquiry commissioner backed Digital Realty's 103 MW MRS5 at the port in October 2024, and the prefecture authorised it on 9 December 2024; it is under construction and due to open by the end of 2026. On 22 January 2026 Bouc-Bel-Air, north of Marseille, granted the building permit for MRS6 -- 26,000 m2 and seven server halls, a EUR 700 million project -- after a favourable inquiry opinion despite about 2,000 petition signatures and objections from FNE13 and Le nuage etait sous nos pieds. No appeal against either is established. Campaigners demand a national moratorium, and in 2026 residents filed a legal challenge against a data center permit in the Drome. In the March 2026 municipal campaign Sebastien Barles, on the France Unbowed list in Marseille, called for a moratorium on data centres, arguing they take power the port needs for ships at dock and ship repair. Reuters found candidates in at least ten French towns campaigning against data centres that month. Whether any Marseille council decision followed the election is not established.

EdgeConneX's roughly 1 billion euro data center plan for Maintal, just east of Frankfurt, stalled in 2026 after residents and local politicians fought the company's proposal to run it on a dedicated on-site gas-fired power plant chosen to skip long grid-connection waits. Protests over the plant's emissions forced a halt to construction work on it; the local SPD said a data center was acceptable but a gas plant was not. EdgeConneX said it had not abandoned the data center and was weighing alternative power options, leaving the project in limbo. A separate AWS data center planned nearby drew its own complaints over how the land was sold.

On February 3, 2026 the town council of Gross-Gerau, about 30 km south of Frankfurt, voted 18 to 14 to reject Vantage Data Centers' planned 174 MW campus (project FRA5), a roughly 2.5 billion euro development of up to five four-story buildings on a 14-hectare site in the Lausboehl industrial park. Members from the SPD, Greens, FDP, Free Voters and Left cited the scale and look of the buildings, weak job creation, doubts that promised trade-tax revenue would stay local, and security concerns. Vantage said it would review the decision before deciding its next steps.

Stack Infrastructure withdrew its data centre from Babenhausen in south-western Germany after the town council attached conditions it would not accept: greater transparency, sustainability commitments including reliance on renewable generation, and a reduction in noise emissions. Nobody voted the project down. The council simply named a price in openness and running conditions, and the developer left rather than pay it. That is worth recording separately from a refusal, because it shows a route available to any council with no power to reject outright -- Germany requires operators to cover half their consumption with unsubsidised renewables since January 2024, so conditions of this kind sit on established national footing rather than novel local rules.

Frankfurt adopted planning rules confining new data centers to designated zones and requiring waste-heat reuse, citing land and grid pressure; environmental group BUND has opposed several local projects. Industry warns the limits could push investment elsewhere.

HUNDREDS PACKED A NAAS HOTEL AGAINST A EUR 3 BILLION DATA-CENTRE CAMPUS. On the night of 3 September 2026 the Kildare Data Centre Awareness Campaign held a public meeting at the Osprey Hotel; the Irish Times counted over 200, the Leinster Leader over 300. The target is Herbata Ltd's six-building campus at Halverstown, Jigginstown and Newhall beside the M7, approved by Kildare County Council in August 2025 and now under appeal at An Coimisiun Pleanala, with a ruling reported as expected by January. The site is zoned solely for data centres in the Naas Local Area Plan 2021-2027. Residents raised noise heard 2 km from a Clondalkin site, summer water demand, gas-turbine emissions and the archaeology of Jigginstown. They want the zoning removed and a moratorium pending impact assessments. Mayor Bill Clear said he would move to rezone the land agricultural and expected to lose. Whether that motion was heard, and how councillors voted, is NOT established here; Kildare County Council's September minutes would settle it.

THE DAIL WAS ASKED TO REINSTATE A DATA-CENTRE PAUSE AND THE GOVERNMENT SAID NO. On 17 June 2026 Labour's Ciaran Ahern moved a motion seeking a moratorium on new data-centre construction until offshore wind comes online, suspension of the regulator's Large Energy User connection policy -- the rules that replaced the Dublin grid freeze in December 2025 -- a levy on data-centre energy use, and an independent study of price, emissions, water and grid effects. The Government tabled a countermotion defending data centres as central to the economy; reports name Minister Darragh O'Brien and Minister of State Catherine Ardagh on the Government side. The Greens and Solidarity backed Labour's concerns. Labour put data centres at about 22 percent of Irish electricity; the figure cited to the committee in September was nearly 24 percent for 2025. The division tally is NOT established here; the Dail record for 17 June 2026 would settle it. The call has not gone away: in September People Before Profit and Sinn Fein demanded a halt to new grid connections, and Friends of the Earth told an Oireachtas committee on 22 September that a pause is needed. THE DAIL REPLACED LABOUR'S MORATORIUM MOTION WITH THE GOVERNMENT'S, 84-70. On 17 June 2026 Labour's Ciaran Ahern moved a motion seeking a moratorium on new data-centre construction until offshore wind comes online, suspension of the regulator's Large Energy User connection policy, a levy on data-centre energy use and an independent study of price, emissions, water and grid effects. The Government countermotion, defending data centres as central to the economy, was carried as an amendment 84-70 (Oireachtas vote 150), and the amended motion then passed 83-70 (vote 151). Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Government-aligned Independents voted for the amendment; Labour, Sinn Fein, the Social Democrats, the Greens, People Before Profit-Solidarity and Aontu voted against. No moratorium was adopted. The call has not gone away: in September People Before Profit and Sinn Fein demanded a halt to new grid connections, Friends of the Earth told an Oireachtas committee on 22 September that a pause is needed, and a public meeting in Naas drew hundreds against a EUR 3 billion campus.

Ireland's data-center pause was never a political decision, which is why it did not survive as one. In 2021 the grid operator EirGrid effectively stopped issuing new connections around Dublin, not on a vote but on an engineering judgement that the capital could not carry the load without risking blackouts. Nobody had campaigned for it and nobody owned it, so when the regulator replaced it with a new connection policy in December 2025 there was no political win to defend. Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of the Earth Ireland and ClientEarth are now in court seeking to overturn the rules that replaced it. The numbers behind the case: data centers consumed 23 percent of all Irish electricity last year, up from about 5 percent a decade earlier, and are forecast to reach 31 percent by 2034, which would make them the country's single largest electricity consumer. A restriction handed down as a technical finding, with no constituency underneath it, disappears the moment the technical finding changes. THE HIGH COURT LET THE CHALLENGE PROCEED ON 28 APRIL 2026. Friends of the Irish Environment, Friends of the Earth Ireland and ClientEarth are seeking judicial review of the energy regulator's December 2025 Large Energy Users Connection Policy -- the rules that replaced the Dublin grid freeze. The policy lets a new data centre connect if it supplies as much power as it uses, but allows fossil fuels for the first six years and then only 80 percent renewables, with backup generators left out of the count. The groups argue this breaches the Climate Act and the EU Energy Efficiency Directive and locks in gas. The regulator is the respondent. No hearing date is established here; the High Court list or the applicants would confirm it.

SOUTH DUBLIN REFUSED GOOGLE IN AUGUST 2024, AND THE APPEAL IS STILL UNDECIDED. The council turned down a 72,400 sq m, eight-hall data centre at Grange Castle / Profile Park in Baldonnell, citing insufficient grid capacity and the lack of significant on-site renewable energy, plus unclear power purchase agreements, no district-heating link, design, zoning and stream-culverting grounds. It rejected Google's claim that an existing EirGrid connection would power it. An Taisce and Friends of the Earth objected. Google appealed on 18 September 2024 (case PL06S.320852). The planning appeals body's own case page, read on 22 September 2026, still lists it as live, with a decision due date of 30 January 2025 long passed and no decision recorded. Why it has stalled is not established here; ask An Coimisiun Pleanala for the case status.

After grid operator EirGrid warned that surging data center demand around Dublin risked blackouts, regulators effectively froze new grid connections from 2021. In a December 2025 decision the Commission for Regulation of Utilities lifted the freeze but replaced it with strict conditions: large new data centers must supply their own on-site or battery generation matching full demand, site in unconstrained grid locations, and meet 80 percent of annual demand from new Irish renewables. Industry groups call the rules burdensome while regulators cite security of supply.

Across Italy's heavily urbanized Lombardy region, the rapid spread of data centers onto farmland and green space has hardened into organized opposition. As the regional government pushed a data center bill (progetto di legge 150) that critics called industry-friendly, opposition parties, environmental committees, and residents from the Milan metropolitan area held a presidio outside the regional council building (the Pirellone) on May 12, 2026, and about fifty mayors from the south Milan and Pavia areas pressed to delay the vote, forcing a postponement. Local committees such as Sentinelle del Territorio in Bornasco have organized against specific sites.

Residents of Certosa di Pavia, south of Milan, formed the Comitato per la Tutela del Territorio Certosino, a non-partisan grassroots committee, to fight a proposed 60,000 square meter data center, about the size of twelve soccer fields and up to 15 meters tall, planned on farmland next to their homes. The committee launched a petition demanding that officials reject the zoning change, citing harm to the environment, public health, and quality of life. The project remained under contest as of early 2026.

A Dutch court denied developer Goodman's bid to force grid operator TenneT to provide a 70-megawatt connection for a data center in Haarlemmermeer, near Amsterdam. The court ruled TenneT could place the project on a waiting list because of grid congestion, and that the public interest outweighed the developer's purely financial interest. Goodman has appealed.

The Netherlands caps hyperscale data centers to two designated national locations under its 2022 rules, and Amsterdam has gone further -- a one-year moratorium in 2019, then in April 2025 a bar on new data centers or expansions in the municipality until at least 2030. But a threshold is a number, and a number can be designed around: in January 2026 Microsoft won approval for a project split into three separate towers, each individually below the size threshold that would have triggered the hyperscale restriction. The buildings are separate; the computing capacity is not. This is worth watching wherever a jurisdiction on this map writes its limit as a megawatt or square-metre figure rather than as a test of total campus capacity, because the same split is available everywhere the rule is drafted that way.

Local opposition, farmers, and nitrogen-permit challenges, together with a Dutch Senate motion against handing over farmland, derailed Meta's planned Zeewolde hyperscale data center campus, one of Europe's largest proposed builds.

In the Wieringermeer polder, farmers and the Dutch agriculture organization LTO appealed Microsoft's environmental permits for the Agriport A7 data centers after they consumed 84 million liters of water in the 2021 drought, far above official projections.

SPAIN MAY MAKE DATA CENTRES EARN THEIR GRID CONNECTION HOUR BY HOUR. Draft rules put out for consultation in late August 2026 would require any data centre with 1 MW or more of grid capacity to match at least 80 percent of its use, every hour, with new renewable generation under contracts of ten years or more, and would cap energy and water efficiency ratios (PUE 1.15, WUE 0.1). Falling short would bring network-tariff surcharges of 100 to 500 percent, and repeated serious breaches could cost the connection. Projects already permitted would get six months to comply before their access rights lapse. This is a proposal, not law; the consultation deadline, the issuing ministry's text and any industry response are not established here. It lands in the country where Aragon residents have been fighting data centres over drought-season water. SOURCING: a trade-press report; the ministry's draft has not been read.

The collective Tu Nube Seca Mi Rio (Your Cloud Dries My River) campaigns against data centers in drought-prone Aragon over their heavy water use, after journalists uncovered the full scale of Amazon Web Services water and power demands buried in planning files.

Activist Aurora Gomez and residents are fighting Meta's data center expansion in Talavera de la Reina, a town of 83,000 west of Madrid, over water and energy demands settled in regional deals without local consultation.

In a country where 75 percent of the land risks desertification, campaigners under the banner 'your cloud is drying my river' have fought a wave of data centers. Meta's billion-euro Talavera de la Reina project, slated to draw hundreds of millions of liters a year from the drought-hit Tagus basin, was forced to cut its planned water use, Amazon's Aragon expansion drew farmer and NGO objections, and in 2025 the city of Lleida banned data centers outright.

After Microsoft finished a data center in Staffanstorp, which it had permitted as a warehouse, residents and local officials fought its plan to add 70 megawatts of diesel backup generators and pushed to revoke the existing permits. In 2022 Microsoft withdrew the expansion application and went looking for another site in southern Sweden, later replacing diesel units with batteries.

SCOTLAND SAID NO TO A MORATORIUM AND YES TO A PAUSE THAT DOES NOT BIND. On 16 September 2026 MSPs rejected the Scottish Greens' call to halt hyperscale data-centre applications. The SNP government's amendment, rejecting a moratorium but requiring environmental impact assessments and national guidance, passed 72-32 with 16 abstentions. Labour's amendment from Paul Sweeney, saying no planning or consenting decisions should be made until that guidance is finished, passed 94-26. Minister Hannah Mary Goodlad said a moratorium was unnecessary. The pause is a statement of Parliament's view, not law: councils could still decide. What did change in law is two ministerial directions -- from 19 August councils must notify ministers of any new data-centre application within seven days of validation, and a second direction announced on 16 September, the day of the vote, requires a full environmental impact assessment for every new data centre over 50 MW. Whether it reaches applications already lodged, such as DataVita's DV4 at Chapelhall, is not stated in the government's release. Guidance is due by the end of 2026. The first tests: the Larbert application near Falkirk, with over 7,000 objections and a 4 October determination deadline, and DataVita's DV4 at Chapelhall.

THE PRIME MINISTER SAID NOT YET. Asked by Labour MP Ian Lavery, whose Blyth constituency faces a GBP 10 billion, 720 MW QTS campus, Andy Burnham told the Commons in September 2026 he would not go as far as a moratorium at this point, while leaving the door open. A Labour early day motion for a moratorium from Richard Burgon had 24 signatures. Two weeks earlier, during a drought, the Government rejected the Green Party's call to stop large AI data centres outright, saying a pause would push investment and jobs abroad and that data centres use under 1 percent of non-household water in England. The Government's answer instead is AI Growth Zones, where councils keep all business-rates growth for 25 years. The exact date of the Commons exchange is not established here; Hansard would settle it.

A 1.5 GW DATA CENTRE IN RURAL NORTH DEVON. Xlinks wants to build its Devon Data Campus at Alverdiscott -- a 1.5 GW AI data centre with 1.8 GW of battery storage. Local Liberal Democrat councillor Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, who sits on Torridge District and Devon County councils, started a Parliament petition asking for an immediate moratorium on approvals for AI data centres and battery sites outside the Government's AI Growth Zones, plus mandatory rural impact assessments. It passed 7,500 signatures by 20 August 2026; at 10,000 the Government must reply. Where the application stands and which body will decide it are not established here.

In early February 2026 the City of Edinburgh Council's development management sub-committee unanimously refused planning permission for a roughly 210 MW data center proposed by Shelborn Asset Management on the former Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters site at South Gyle. Planning officers had recommended approval, but councillors rejected the project's 'green' framing, pointing to unproven renewable sourcing and heat reuse, diesel backup generators, and projected emissions near 200,000 tonnes a year, about a tenth of the city's total. Shelborn appealed, and the refusal pushed Edinburgh councillors to call for a Scotland-wide pause and a clear national definition of a green data center. UPDATE, 4 AUGUST 2026: THE APPEAL IS ON HOLD. The Scottish Government ruled the 210 MW scheme could have a significant effect on the environment and required a full Environmental Impact Assessment before the developer's appeal can proceed; it was given until 20 August to say whether it would produce one. Whether it committed to the assessment is NOT established, and no appeal decision has been issued. (The trade press names the appellant Shelborn Drummond.)

The UK government reversed its own approval of a roughly 1 billion pound data center in Iver, Buckinghamshire. Ministers had overruled the local authority's objections -- raised over the scheme's energy demands -- to grant consent, but the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government later acknowledged its decision had contained a serious logical error, and the approval was quashed.

Friends of the Earth Havering opposes a large hyperscale data center in a semi-rural Green Belt area of east London, citing eight to ten years of construction disruption and huge power use, part of UK-wide days of action in February 2026.

A LOSS, and the most instructive kind. Tower Hamlets council did not determine four data centre applications within the statutory period, which let the developers appeal by default. After a public inquiry the government allowed all four, finding the proposals broadly accorded with existing development plans while acknowledging conflicts with local planning policy and limited harm to heritage assets. The decision leaned on the National Planning Policy Framework, which directs councils to identify suitable sites for data centres -- the same policy that had already overturned a refusal at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire. The lesson for any campaign working through a council: in England a local refusal is not final, and a council that misses its own deadline hands the decision to an inspector. Protests continue against a large facility planned near Great Torrington in Devon.

Buckinghamshire Council twice refused a hyperscale data center on green-belt land near London, but the central government overturned the refusals on appeal. Campaign groups Foxglove and Global Action Plan won permission for a judicial review, and ministers were forced to admit a serious logical error in approving the project without guaranteeing its power supply or assessing its full water and electricity demands. It is the first UK legal challenge aimed at a data center's environmental impact.

In a city scarred by the 2018 Day Zero drought, the Housing Assembly, which represents more than twenty Western Cape communities, joined Foxglove and the Legal Resources Centre to formally object to a rezoning for two new Equinix data centers near Cape Town airport, arguing officials lacked basic information on their water, electricity, diesel, and pollution impacts. Four planned data centers would together draw about 34 percent of the city's current electricity supply.

Rights groups and residents in Visakhapatnam (Vizag), Andhra Pradesh are fighting a Google-Adani hyperscale data center park built by Google subsidiary Raiden Infotech across more than 600 acres at three sites, including one at Adavivaram barely 120 meters from the Mudasarlova drinking-water reservoir and amid the Kailasagiri-Kambalakonda hill and forest landscape. The Human Rights Forum and others petitioned for a halt to site work, public hearings, MOU disclosure, and a cumulative environmental review, charging that clearances were rushed and split into pieces under political pressure. In late May 2026 Instagram, Facebook, and X restricted or were asked to restrict posts publicizing the opposition petition under India's IT Act, drawing free-speech objections. On 6 September 2026 the group Stop Vizag Data Centres held a People's Convention in Visakhapatnam against some 6.5 GW of approved AI data-centre capacity, including the Google-Adani parks at Adavivaram and Tarluvada. Advocate D Nagasaila said three environmental clearances were granted within a week and are now before the National Green Tribunal; former secretary EAS Sarma warned the Mudasarlova reservoir could fall further. Researchers set the state's claim of 188,000 jobs against 1,725 permanent posts in the project documents. The tribunal's hearing dates are not established here.

THANE RESIDENTS WANT AMAZON'S DATA CENTRE MOVED OUT OF A RESIDENTIAL AREA. On 18 July 2026 several hundred people (PTI's count; a party paper put it near 1,000) rallied under the banner Wake Up Thanekar outside the roughly 53-acre Balkum site where Amazon plans a hyperscale data centre. Their objections: 193 diesel backup generators, heat and noise beside housing, schools and hospitals, and water -- protesters say the plant needs about 12 million litres a day in a city already short of supply. Amazon says it will not use drinking water for cooling, that the municipal corporation will supply 12 million litres a day of recycled sewage water, that it will draw power from a dedicated substation, and that it has every approval it needs. Thane MP Naresh Mhaske asked for a construction stay, an independent expert review and a public hearing. Residents have petitioned Municipal Commissioner Saurabh Rao and the Chief Minister to review and cancel the layout permissions. NOT ESTABLISHED: the plant's capacity from an official source (one report says 422 MW), and any response from the corporation or state. Read with Vizag, where a Google-Adani park faces the same water fight.

On Batam, an Indonesian island near Singapore that depends almost entirely on rainwater, residents have protested a fast-growing cluster of data centers over their heavy water use. In September 2024 a local protest demanded officials address how the facilities were cutting into community water supplies, and in December 2024 residents of the Teluk Mata Ikan fishing village gathered outside data centers at Nongsa Digital Park, contrasting the steady flow to the tech complex with their own shortages. Roughly 18 data centers are built or planned across the island, and researchers estimate the existing and planned sites could draw about 8 percent of Batam's water.

Residents of Inzai, a fast-growing data center cluster in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, sued to stop a large facility known as Inzai 5, part of a wave of local pushback as data centers spread into populated areas. Records obtained by residents showed city officials met repeatedly with the developers in 2024 and 2025, asked them to reconsider or move the site over expected conflict with neighbors, and were rebuffed; the developers stressed the project's role in powering AI and hinted at an investor lawsuit if it were delayed. In December the mayor said the city had no legal power to halt a private development on private land under existing rules, leaving residents to press their case in court over how data centers should be classified.

Johor rejected close to 30 percent of data center applications to protect local resources, then raised water tariffs and required reclaimed-water cooling. Officials frame it as maturing from growth at any cost to sustainable growth.

Singapore paused new data centers from 2019 to 2022 over power, water, and land limits, then reopened with a competitive scheme admitting only highly efficient, low-emission facilities. The government frames it as sustainable growth; some operators shifted projects to Malaysia and elsewhere in the region.

Resident opposition has become the biggest obstacle to data centers around Seoul. Of 33 permitted projects in the capital region across 2024 and 2025, 17 were delayed or scrapped after community campaigns, including a Digital Realty site in Gimpo suspended indefinitely and a Hyosung center in Anyang cancelled after permits were issued. Residents cite electromagnetic fields, noise, and heat, even though a 2025 government study measured emissions at about 1 percent of the safety limit.

NSW CHOSE SPEED OVER A PAUSE. On 17 August 2026 Treasurer Daniel Mookhey and Climate Minister Penny Sharpe announced a 75-day assessment track for data centres that meet new state guidelines -- efficiency and environmental standards, paying for extra renewable energy and water infrastructure, no net cost to consumers, and community and training commitments. It came while Greenpeace, a public petition and Western Sydney groups were asking for a moratorium and a Legislative Council inquiry was still sitting. Campaigners at the announcement asked where the water and power would come from; the Stop the Slop campaign wants AI data centres out of residential suburbs. How the no-net-cost test will be measured and enforced is not established. Ask the Department of Planning for the guideline text and the first applications assessed under it.

In June 2026 a developer withdrew plans for a data center at North Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, after strong opposition from residents and the local council. The Blue Mountains mayor called the withdrawal a win for council and community activism. The developer, MAK Urban Group, said it had listened to local residents and community groups while maintaining that data centers can benefit regional areas.

As New South Wales fast-tracks data centers as state significant developments that bypass council approval, Western Sydney communities have pushed back hard. The state quietly approved the southern hemisphere's largest data center at Marsden Park, under 100 meters from homes, while AirTrunk's planned 1.2-gigawatt Kemps Creek campus with 846 diesel generators near schools drew objections from Penrith Council, residents, and the environment regulator. A parliamentary inquiry is underway. GREENPEACE WANTS A NATIONAL PAUSE. On 27 May 2026 Greenpeace Australia Pacific published Energy Vampires and called for a moratorium on data-centre approvals and construction until enforceable national rules exist, singling out the 1 GW Mamre Road campus in Western Sydney. In Western Sydney the youth-led Tomorrow Movement held a March 2026 town hall of more than 80 people and told the NSW Legislative Council inquiry (submission 39, received 26 March) that the region is being used as a dumping ground, citing diesel generators near schools, water and power bills at Marsden Park, Eastern Creek and Mamre Road. Its submission asks for developer accountability, not a moratorium; a separate petition to the Minns government does ask for one. Whether the inquiry will recommend a pause is not established.

In Melbourne, organized community opposition has targeted several data center projects. Maribyrnong City Council formally opposed NextDC's expansion of its M3 campus, which awaits planning approval from the Victorian government, with residents raising noise, power draw, and proximity-to-schools concerns. Separately, residents launched a petition against a proposed data center on the historic Broadmeadows Ford factory site, citing air and noise pollution, water use, and health risks.

GreenSquare withdrew its application for a roughly $1.1 billion, three-story, 15,000 square meter data center at Hazelmere, about 15 km east of Perth, in 2026 after the local council recommended rejection over noise from its 88 diesel backup generators and nearly 1,900 public submissions, most of them opposed. Objectors cited environmental impact and the site's proximity to a river, a conservation wetland, two Aboriginal heritage sites, and a primary school.