The Real Fight Over Data Centers Is the Grid

Meta recently announced it would expand Project Hyperion, its data center under construction in Richland Parish, Louisiana, into a 5-gigawatt, $50 billion facility that will be one of the largest AI campuses in the world. The announcement landed amid an increasingly organized, bipartisan movement to block future data center construction. By one estimate, opponents blocked or delayed 75 projects representing $130 billion in investment in the first quarter of 2026 alone, citing water and electricity consumption among other concerns. But a closer look at these concerns shows that some of the loudest objections do not survive contact with the numbers.