00:00A Kansas planning commission looked at an $860 million data center and said no.
00:06So the city council overrode its own experts and pushed the project through anyway.
00:11From formal complaints against Virginia supervisors to a $100 billion mega campus on the
00:18fast track and a possible $10 billion handshake between AI rivals.
00:23The fight over who really controls America's data center boom is escalating fast.
00:31In Edgerton, Kansas, the fight over an $860 million data center just took a remarkable turn.
00:40The city's own planning commission voted 3-2 to reject the final plans from Dubai-based
00:46developer Daymac Digital.
00:48After the company failed to answer basic questions about noise levels and future expansion,
00:55residents packed the meetings in opposition.
00:58And neighbors across southern Johnson County have spent months pushing back,
01:03even demanding a moratorium the council declined to pass in June.
01:07Then the city council overrode all of it, unanimously,
01:12sending the project at Logistics Park Kansas City forward anyway.
01:16The developer still needs its final plat approved, and that heads back to the very same planning
01:22commission in August, but the message from City Hall was unmistakable.
01:28This data center is getting built, whether the commission and the neighbors like it or not.
01:34That kind of decision-making done over residents' objections is exactly what's drawing legal fire
01:41elsewhere. In Franklin County, Virginia, a formal complaint has been filed against three members
01:48of the Board of Supervisors, accusing them of violating the state's open government laws during
01:55negotiations over a potential data center project. The complaint alleges budget decisions were discussed
02:02privately. Meeting agendas were controlled by a small group of officials. Public access to meetings
02:09was restricted. Information was withheld from other board members. And motions from fellow supervisors
02:16were suppressed. It also raises conflict of interest concerns. Residents have been demanding
02:23transparency for weeks. Packing board meetings and insisting the county negotiate in the open.
02:30County leaders now face scrutiny under Virginia's Freedom of Information Act. And the outcome could shape
02:36how every rural county in the state handles the next data center deal.
02:42And all that local anger is starting to move actual votes. A new report from Fortune describes Texas as
02:49the wild west of data centers. Hundreds of facilities are coming to the state, and Democratic candidates
02:56are now campaigning directly against them in Republican strongholds. Political strategists are calling
03:03data centers the most cross-partisan issue they've ever seen. With polls showing only about a third of
03:10Americans approve of the pace of construction. Some analysts say the backlash is strong enough to put
03:17Texas, Texas, up for grabs in statewide races. State utility agencies are feeling the heat too.
03:25The Public Utility Commission says it's taking action to shield ratepayers from data center costs.
03:31When the reddest big state in America becomes a battleground over server farms. Every politician in the
03:39country takes notice. Underneath the politics sits a very real bill, and it's landing on ordinary
03:47families. A day after the White House expanded its ratepayer protection pledge, analysts pointed out an
03:54uncomfortable truth. The pledge is voluntary and non-binding. And some warn electricity bills could
04:01still jump as much as 40% in the hardest-hit regions. Moody's ratings put it bluntly in a new
04:08sector report. The current system lacks adequate mechanisms to make new entrants pay for new power
04:15supply. And instead socializes those costs across all customers. The evidence is already in. PJM, the grid serving
04:2567 million people from Illinois to Virginia, saw its latest capacity auction clear at $325 per megawatt day.
04:34The maximum allowed, while supply fell nearly 7 gigawatts short. Researchers estimate data centers have already
04:42added $23 billion to the public's electricity bills. Electricity is only half the resource equation.
04:52Water tells the other half of the story. In drought-stricken Austin, Texas, the city council has approved a
05:00resolution directing the city manager to explore water conservation. Rules for the region's thirstiest
05:07industries. Data centers and semiconductor manufacturers chief among them. The concern isn't abstract.
05:15Texas data centers consumed more than 50 billion gallons of water in 2024. Enough to supply a city the
05:23size of Austin itself for months. And the state's reservoirs keep shrinking through a punishing drought.
05:31Nationally, researchers have found that roughly two-thirds of planned American data center projects are
05:37cited. In areas already facing water shortages. Austin's move is only a study for now. But it signals where
05:45fast-growing sunbelt cities are heading. If the industry wants their land and their power. It's going to have
05:52to answer for their water. Meanwhile, the companies driving all this demand keep making moves that would have
06:00sounded impossible a year ago. Anthropic, the maker of Claude, is in early talks to lease AI computing power from
06:09Meta. Its direct rival in the race to build frontier models. The potential deal is worth about $10 billion
06:18over roughly two years. Meta has been pouring hundreds of billions into gigawatt-scale campuses like
06:25Hyperion in Louisiana. And leasing spare capacity would help offset that staggering build-out.
06:32Anthropic, for its part, has its own $50 billion data center program and has reportedly signed more than a
06:40dozen letters of intent for additional leases. Compute, not talent, is now the scarcest resource in AI.
06:48The talks are still preliminary and could fall apart. But the fact they're happening at all shows how
06:55desperate the industry is for capacity. Anyone's capacity. And despite every protest, complaint,
07:03and moratorium, construction is racing ahead, nowhere bigger than Southside, Virginia.
07:10The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors has approved a resolution supporting expedited
07:16permitting for Stack Infrastructure's $100 billion data center campus at the Southern
07:23Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill, one of the largest projects ever proposed in the United States.
07:30The Denver-based developer plans a build-out stretching 15 to 30 years, creating roughly 2,500
07:37jobs over the next two decades. Stack says it will shoulder all grid integration costs with Appalachian
07:44power and run operations on recycled water drawn from regional infrastructure connected to the Dan River.
07:52Local officials call it an economic turning point for a region hollowed out by the loss of tobacco
07:59and textiles. But residents say the approvals are moving faster than the planning,
08:04and they're demanding the county slow down. And the money financing all of that construction keeps
08:12climbing to heights Wall Street can barely. Stomach, Alphabet, Google's parent company,
08:18raised its 2026 capital spending forecast to between $195 and $205 billion. Up from the $180
08:28to $190 billion it projected just three months ago. Nearly all of it goes to AI and cloud infrastructure,
08:36the data centers, chips, and networks behind the boom. The quarter itself was strong. Revenue came in at
08:45nearly $120 billion, beating expectations, with Google Cloud surging 82% to a record $24.8 billion.
08:55But investors flinched at the spending, sending the stock down roughly 5% after hours. And executives say
09:03capital expenditures will rise significantly again in 2027. The build-out, in other words, is nowhere near its peak.
09:14And the inventor of the company that funds a paying for $1 billion. Wait a minute.
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