The Revolt Against AI Data Centers Has Begun (Derrick Broze on Redacted)

Well, more and more communities across the United States are starting to fight back against these AI data centers. Citizens are saying, not in my backyard. We don't want the noise. We don't want the tap on resources taking away our water, our electricity use, increasing our overall bills. And this has now sparked a nationwide movement to try to stop these data centers across the United States. And the 2 men really leading the charge to reclaim our future in the United States and stop the buildout of these AI data centers. Derek Brose, investigative journalist, longtime friend of the show, and likewise Hakeem Anwar, the CEO of Above Phone and the founder of AI Data Center Map, are leading this charge for a big event on August 1st, which is called Reclaim Our Future: Day of Action Against AI Data Centers. And welcome to both of you. Thank you guys for being here.

Thanks for having us, Clayton.

So Derek, why don't you set this up and explain what this August 1st date looks like and why did you decide to do this?

Yeah, so as, as you were outlining there, there's more and more Americans across the country and really people around the world who are concerned about this issue of data centers, whether they're coming from, you know, conservative ranchers concerned about their property or left-wing climate change activists, progressives who are concerned about environmental issues. And I think everything in between, people who may just be wholesale against AI use at all. And Hakeem and I both have been noticing this over the last few months and really see this as an opportunity to bring people together, maybe in a unique way that we haven't seen other than perhaps the flock cameras, that it seems like it is uniting left, right, politically homeless, center, what have you, people across the board concerned about this and actually want to do something about it. And while there have existed other movements, including recently, who have called for days of action or protest, some of them are very focused on just conservatives or just focused on progressives. We wanted to have a day of action that was very focused on a nonpartisan, transpartisan movement. Whatever your political persuasion or lack thereof, this is a day for us all to come together and express your concerns. Again, whether they're environmental, whether they're about surveillance, whether they're about the noise pollution and all the variety of things going on related to these data centers, this is one day that we can put aside our differences and come together and really focus on this issue that impacts everybody.

Hakeem, you put together the data center map and it is just— and when you see these little dots and you just can zoom into your area, your county, your backyard, and see these data centers being built out, it's incredibly disheartening. So why did you wanna be a part of this? Why did you want to join up with Derek and bring more awareness to this growing problem in the United States?

Well, this is such a big problem. It doesn't seem like there's any form of resistance that can come up against trillions of dollars of data center investment. I mean, that's what we spent in 2025, $2.5 trillion. McKinsey and Company estimates we're going to spend another $5 trillion. So this money could be going towards nicer things. It could solve homelessness. It could build a nationwide high-speed rail network. But it's actually being built for AI data centers that are going to suck up the land. They're going to suck up the water and power. And people are already starting to see the effects. Now, we've already gone through the downturn of the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns, and people are already feeling the financial hit. Now, this is the final frontier for our natural resources. If we don't have our land, if we aren't able to bring up water to our land and supply the farmers, supply our own drinking water, what do we really have left? So we need to step up and actually do something. They, uh, they like to kid around and say, hey, you're not going to need to work anymore because AI is going to take your job. Well, this is one place where we actually need people power. This AI can't come in and save us here. So the day of action is incredibly important. We already have a few different events around the country where people are coming together and educating each other. And I also released this new feature on the map which allows you to contribute. So wherever you're at, I'll bring the map up here and you can see if I go into Kansas or this area here, and I can actually add in information about a data center here. Now, the reason why this, this is important is because I've been tracking like 4,000 data centers. Honestly, I'm going a little bit crazy. I can't do this on my own. This is where we need people power, and this will allow us to decentralize our intelligence and actually coordinate to stop these data centers from being built, which there are victories we're seeing.

So really, Derek, I guess like crowdsourcing this information to Hakeem's map, what are you encouraging people to do like with this data, with their communities, and maybe contributing to the build-out information that people are aware of?

Well, I think Hakeem was saying, I mean, we really just need to know what we're dealing with. I think that's the big, you know, the first step here is that a lot of people are becoming increasingly aware that data centers are a problem and the different challenges associated with them, but they might not realize whether or not there's one in their own community, in their backyard, or even in their state. So having resources like Hakeem has set up here, I think are incredibly valuable. And as he was saying, making it sort of open source where if he hasn't found one or his team hasn't found one and there's a new one popping up, people can contribute that and make sure that just that knowledge is out there. And in terms of what we're trying to call for really for this day of action overall is just for people to continue to visit their town councils, their city councils, their commissioner courts, the different bodies, local bodies and municipal bodies I mean, right now there's this, I think, 500 to 1,000-acre data center being built in Tennessee, and we've been contacted by people since we've announced this day of action who are very desperate, honestly, and who are looking for solutions. I think for me, this is just an opportunity to say, if you're already fighting this, let's continue to push. Let's come together for that single day of action. But we're also trying to see if we can push for moratoriums, environmental assessment studies. Like, for example, New York State just announced they were going to halt all production of new data centers.

Okay.

of data centres for at least a year as they study, you know, how the impact actually is going to play out in reality. Because none of us know for certain. We can see the threats. We can see the dangers. As Hakeem mentioned, there are some communities that are already seeing impacts to their water supply, for example. Overall, I do think this is about building surveillance, you know, network. This is where they're going to store all the data they've been gathering from us, whether it's facial recognition cameras, flock cameras. So I think it's also part of the larger surveillance network. Hakeem, I want to come to you. Fight against the technocratic state. But overall, I think we just need to put as much energy into this, raising awareness about it, getting people to focus on this specific issue, and if possible, stop it where we can. At the least, raise as much awareness about it, because sometimes, as you know, Clayton, there's not a quick fix, easy solution to some of these topics we discussed. They're pretty big, but we just need more awareness to happen. We need people to come out into the streets, whether it's holding signs, but also I would say Take the data that Hakeem has put together on his map, as well as his new report, and use that to host educational events in your community, teach-ins. Just bring people together, look at the map, study it, look at your area, look at the report, and use that to then take that accurate information to your local officials and to actually educate them. And unfortunately, some of them are already educated. They simply don't care. They're being paid off. But I think we still need to try to push back where we can.

Hakim, what are the big problems with these data centers?

Sure, there's, there's one that's on the top of my mind, and that's water conservation. These, uh, these data centers are being given immense rights to their water, and they're really taking advantage of the freedoms we've been given, uh, in this— in the United States, which is absolute dominion over our water supply. And so because many of these data centers have to cool chips that are so hot they're close to the surface of the sun, They're using millions of gallons of water a day, and cities aren't finding out about it until they're noticing differences in their water pressure. And so they're finding that these data centers are actually using all the water and power. The— what we've seen on the map is with these 4,000 data centers already here on the map, which you can see, you can actually get estimates of the entire area if you click on an empty space on the map. It'll calculate the amount of power and water usage close to you. And what we're seeing is if all the data centers they've planned to build out till 2030 are built, then they're going to be using 40% of the United States power supply. 40%. Meanwhile, they tell us that the power prices aren't going to go up. It's inevitable that they're going to at least double or triple.

Well, can you just put up the map and maybe both of you guys can just talk, talk over this a little bit? Maybe we can zoom around a little bit on the map here. To some areas where obviously if you go out to the desert Southwest in the United States or Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, areas that obviously struggle for water on a regular basis. And I live in Colorado and right now there's huge concerns about water. And we had some rain yesterday, but that's the first rainstorm we've had in a long time. And so when you look at the water resources in these areas, it's already slim to none. Where are they going to be pulling this water from?

Yeah, I just want to add here that I think that this is a great concern, Clayton, you're speaking about here, particularly in the rural areas. I'm from Texas originally, and Texas is one of the places where they're planning out massive builds and hundreds of data centers because of how much land there is and because I think they, they believe they can hide it away from where most of the population is. But as you're pointing out, those are also the areas that struggle greatly with water supply already without even a data center in there. There's already droughts. For example, I was recently in Abilene, Texas, West Texas, and there's a big data center being built there. And there's, as you can imagine, in these areas, there's some divided opinions for people who are being promised this is going to produce jobs. And so they're sort of in favor of it.

Yeah.

But then there's a lot of the local population, and these are conservative folks who are very concerned about how it's going to impact their own water supply and their own land use. I did also want to mention, just in terms of what Hakim said a moment ago about the power usage, you know, 2 things. First, the Trump administration has issued an executive order a couple of months ago claiming that they are going to prevent ratepayers from having to pay extra on their electric bills, and some of the big tech companies, data center companies, are also promising that. Now, that remains to be seen whether or not that's going to be true.

Yeah.

But even if we take them at their word and they are going to help prevent electric usage from going up and different power bills from going up, even if they can actually promise that, I would just want to remind the audience that that's just one tiny piece of the puzzle here. Great, your electric bill might not go up because they pay the cost, but that doesn't stop the water problems we're talking about. That doesn't stop the noise pollution. Also, we've been learning that The cables and the infrastructure for these data centers, they use a lot of forever chemicals that they spray on them. So forever chemicals are released into the air and potentially into the water from the usage of this. And then, of course, just the land rights, eminent domain, things like that. And then, as I kind of hinted at earlier, the broader surveillance concerns. So even if they can keep this promise about not making your electric bill go up, there are still many other concerns, including this water issue we're discussing here.

Right.

And go ahead, Hakeem.

I really do think it centers on the water issue because power, you can create, you can build new power plants even though it takes some time, but our aquifers can get depleted. And we've been seeing groundwater depletion in this country since the 1980s. And now we're hitting levels where when the groundwater declines enough, you may not even be able to pull water to your house with a well. And so in Colorado, this might hit close to home for some people. homeowners are being told to count the times they go to the bathroom and they flush and they shower. And they have such a severe drought that they're starting to install household water meters, smart meters that check your water consumption every 15 minutes. So this thing is connected to the cell network, it's generating EMF, and it's creating a pattern of use for your water. Meanwhile, there's different data centers in the US that are— just don't have any sort of checks or balances or any reporting that they have to do. And this is fitting into this larger agenda of a water bankruptcy, which our friend Ice Age Farmer has reported. In January 2026, the UN declared a global water bankruptcy, which they're not talking about. This isn't just like a seasonal drought that we go in through a summer. This is a permanent crisis where the damage to our water systems is reversible— irreversible. And they're getting excited about this because they think they're going to come in and save us by stepping in and monitoring our water supply and trying to enforce limits on the rest of us while their data centers actually consume all of our natural resources.

I mean, let's just talk about the energy prices and costs right now. I mean, again, I hate to just talk about where I live, but that's— I don't look at other people's bills. I look at our own. And I can already see— we've already seen a huge increase in energy costs per kilowatt hour over the past year in Colorado. Like, why? Why exactly? And I guess, you know, I don't know if we can tie it directly to the rise of these data centers in an area, but it seems like something is going on here. And for people who are already strapped with inflation and the cost of groceries, and of course oil prices now around $100 a barrel today, I mean, these things are real and every little bit matters to a family trying to protect themselves and trying to put food on the table. Doubling or even a third of the cost going up on your electric bill, Derek, is a huge problem for people. And these data centers, do we know an exact— data center equals this amount in a community yet? Do we have that data?

Hakeem might know better than me, but I will say that there— I mean, I'm sure some of the audience here has seen videos going across social media, particularly I've seen some of these on Instagram that are claiming if you use AI for X amount of time, it equals X amount of gallons. I personally don't know if anybody's got that exact math, you know, correct. And I will say also, I think there's sort of a kind of a little bit of a psyop going on in terms of convincing people that if they query Grok a couple of times or ChatGPT a couple of times, you know, not that I recommend using those. I encourage you, if you're going to use AI, use some sovereign self-hosted AI. But I think there's this message that says by you asking one of those bots a couple of questions, you're causing the problem here, when in reality it's the big tech companies. It's those who are building the massive data centers, the Metas, the Oracles, and, and so on and so forth that I think are the ones to blame here. Not to say that we might not have any impact as individuals. But from my perspective, it seems like there's sort of a blaming the victim, if you will. But maybe Hakim has some more insight into the exact math there.

Yeah, it's actually— we've open-sourced the map, and this is our estimate based on some of the leading academic studies of data center power and water consumption. So if you go on the map and you see one of these black triangles, you can go in and click on the formula, and it's a pretty simple formula. It's based off the power capacity. So like the data center has to advertise, hey, we're using this much power, and that's how all these AI companies measure the expanse of their AI. So by taking the power capacity, you can kind of judge how often is this AI data center operational, how much time is it running, how much power is it using, and you can directly convert that into its water usage as well. So if you go on aidatacentermap.org and you click on an empty area, you'll— it'll draw a ring around you and you'll get to see the aggregate impact. Now, this is kind of our approach. Like, we'd love to be proven wrong. The whole reason we even came up with this is because I was going to official data center sites and they were asking for, you know, something crazy like $20,000 for the information. When I was exchanging emails with academics, they didn't really know. They were evaluating many different models. And so just looked at a few different studies. I looked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and they had the most well-thought-out bottom-up approach. They actually would build representations of data centers from each individual part and then run hydrological analysis on how much water these parts would use. So it's, it's all cited if you click on— here, I'll bring this back up. So I'm clicking on a data center right now. You can click on the I and you can get a breakdown of the formula as well. So you can go straight to the paper and see for yourself. This is kind of what we have to do in the meantime while these data centers are not sharing information. And if you go in their sustainability reports, you'll find in the fine print they're not even measuring how much water they use. In most cases, they're just estimating it. So it's a total sham. There's no checks. They don't have to install any meters. Meanwhile, they're going to come to your house and tell you to, uh, not water your lawn or to not water your garden. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Yeah, it's crazy. Do we know the— where is an area in the United States that has the most concentration right now? Is it the Northeast?

It is Virginia. That is Data Center Alley. So here in Data Center Alley, there's— you start to get a lot of very bad effects, this Northern Virginia Valley here. Um, so a few quick facts about this area. There are so many data centers in Virginia, they're already using more than 25% of the power supply there. And that's, that's a trend that we're starting to see. There are 6 other states where data centers are using more than 10%. But here in Virginia, there's about 140 data centers, probably more by the time I've looked at the study. And what, what researchers saw, Virginia Commonwealth University, is they saw that data centers produced 4 to 7% of the total emissions allowed in the state.

Wow.

So carbon monoxide emissions tripled, nitrous oxide, particulate matter more than doubled. These are all pollutants that come off from diesel backup generators, which in this case for these data centers, they're not powered by these backup generators. These backup generators are only being used when like testing, maintenance, or emergency outages. So they're only being used for 30 minutes at a time. Imagine if there was a power outage then all these generators would need to kick online to run 24/7. They'd produce 20 times more pollution. This is going to become a public health emergency if we have grid crises. And, you know, the, the grid in this region has said that by 2028, they don't actually have enough reserve capacity for their grid to accommodate all of the new grid interconnection requests, most of them from AI data centers.

This week, or last week, I guess, Derek, even Elon Musk just bought, in his own personal portfolio, not a part of SpaceX or anything else, he bought a power company called APR Energy, which is basically small, modular diesel turbine generators for data centers. To what Hakeem is just talking about here, if those shut down, or if there's some sort of an electrical outage, these massive modular diesel generators would kick on. So, he just spent $1 billion to invest in this infrastructure. And I don't know, to me, it's— what do you make of that, first of all?

I think it's probably his awareness of what Hakeem's talking about right there, is just that this strain on the grid that is coming and is already here. And so, they're preparing, people like Musk who have the money and the resources are preparing for that inevitability. Because, of course, I'm sure he would hate for a potential grid failure to impact all of his companies and all of his projects, which are dependent on these data centers. So, he's making sure he's got some backup You know, power to go on. But of course, if the grid goes down and Elon Musk can power on all of his generators, what do the rest of us do? What do the rest of the folks who aren't trillionaires and who are just trying to make it do?

Right. And if you think these things are loud now, Hakim, like, I mean, that's one of the big complaints is the sound, the noise coming from these AI data centers, never mind just the water consumption, the electricity bills, but the sound. If you've ever been around diesel generators, Imagine hundreds of them suddenly kicking on and the amount of noise that you would hear from diesel generators would be 10x.

It's nonstop. They're going 24/7 because these things are being built so fast thanks to Trump's bonus depreciation, which was a part of the Big Beautiful Bill, where he basically says if you get a data center operational within a year, you can write off all of it from your taxable income. That's why these are being built so fast. So because they're being built so fast, yes, they have to build in, bring in temporary power generation like Elon Musk did. And he's been caught by independent organizations like the Southern Law Poverty Institute, which had to rent a plane and fly over to use a thermal camera to see that he was using way more natural gas turbines than he was even permitted. Does the EPA care? Does the local health department care? Does the state agency care?

No.

Like, civilians have to go and look for themselves. So this is just one of the— this is why Derek and I are putting our efforts on this, is because regulations aren't going to save us. The environment, the people who are meant to protect the environment, they don't seem to care. It's all big business. So we actually need to step up. And it's through people power we're going to push back against this.

You know, one of the stories that came out this week, Derek was on Mark Cuban saying that he believes that there's this massive overbuilding and that most of these things are gonna wind up becoming pickleball courts because the amount of money that's pouring into building all of these AI data centers, they're not gonna need it. And I guess what he's saying is if you look to China, China did the same thing. They were sort of overbuilding all of these data centers everywhere, a glut on the horizon, and then they found out that they actually didn't need them. So now they've scaled down, and China uses more AI than anybody. So the fact that they're able to do more with less, and American companies still haven't figured that out, and they're just continuing to build and build and build and build. Do you think that we're gonna hit this wall where these things become pickleball courts?

I think it is possible. Now, it's interesting, 'cause I feel like this goes into sort of a related conversation about whether or not we are actually witnessing an AI bubble, that there's so much hype around AI. Obviously, it has its uses, both in terms of practical time-saving measures, but also in terms of surveillance, like China is using. But there is this discussion that maybe what we're witnessing with AI and so many companies claiming they have an AI feature, whether it's functional or necessary, that we are going to get to a point in the coming years or maybe even later this year where that AI bubble bursts, much like the dot-com bubble 2 decades ago. And you see this really shrinking of that of that economy. And so that could obviously impact data centers and the buildout of them. And I think what Hakeem pointed to as well with the Trump measure in the big beautiful bill, that's incentivizing businesses to build as quickly and rapidly as possible. As we know, sometimes these people, they don't care if it's going to last into the future. They're just trying to profit off it in the meantime if they can. So it could be that it's something that does cause a glut, as you mentioned, and then there is a later on a reduction and we see a bunch of new pickleball courts. It also could be, as I believe, that Most of these data centers are really about trying to have server space to store the massive amount of data that the U.S. is gathering on its people, whether that's the flock cameras, the facial recognition cameras, the other numerous types of technology that we know they have to survey and monitor us, including through the internet itself. They need places to store that data. And of course, China obviously has their own surveillance authoritarian state. And I guess if they can do it with less data centers, Maybe the US could. So there could be something else going on. It could be the hype. It could be a bubble bursting soon. But I do think whether there's the thousands they're planning or the downscaled version that maybe China's doing, they still will pose a threat to the communities that they're built in.

Hakim, according to your map, where are you seeing the biggest pushback right now, the success in saying, no, we don't want these things in our backyard?

That's a really good question. I don't have a specific area. It's kind of scattered around the country. There are 60 counties that have passed moratoriums on data centers, but that's at the county level. Derek mentioned earlier that New York State has had a full state-level ban on new data center developments, and that's a really big deal. They're the first state to do that. It really depends. There's hotspots, like areas like Texas are very prized as a place to build out data centers. One, they've got ERCOT, one of the you know, the most independent power grids in the country. And 2, they have absolute dominion water rights in Texas, which means that if you can pump the water onto your land, you own it. And you could be a data center, pump up millions of gallons over time and drain the entire aquifer and there would be no consequences, right? So there's kind of like this give and take. But what we are finding is in places like San Marcos, Texas, it's really taking a population that is aware and ecologically concerned that see this coming and step up and organize community. And just to give you an example of what San Marcos had to do to kick out a $2 billion data center is they had to rally for 6 months to get the city council, to get people to show up to zoning commission meetings and to bring 100 people out that kept the meeting going on till 3:00 AM in the morning. That's how loudly they have to speak up. And they didn't need to do that once. They had to do that twice because the data center simply reapplied and came back a second time. So these industries, they're persistent, they're greedy, they don't want to stop. It's going to take a very concerned populace to push back. And that's why the report, it will— can show you a lot. And that's why we want everyone to create an event on the map.

I'd also just add to that answer real quick. Florida. Florida is one of the places that has been really pushing back. And I just want to shout out my buddy Justin Harvey with We Are Change Orlando. and many other activists have been really kicking butt out there. I mean, they've got dozens of counties that have either already implemented moratoriums or are in the process of voting on that. And he's just every week just relentless out there helping rally activists, not only in his own town where he lives, but in other parts of Florida, just traveling the state to try to get people to do exactly what Hakeem's describing there. So Florida definitely, from my perspective, from what I've seen, seems to be a hotspot of resistance.

Well, tell us again, on August 1st, what can people do? How can they be a part of this big event and try to take back their counties, their communities from these data centers?

Yeah, go to— go ahead, go ahead, Hakim. I'll let you take it away, brother.

Go to reclaimfuture.com, check it out. You can, uh, click this button here to host an event. There's some guidelines for what you can do. You can create an educational event, you can create a rally, you can create a protest, and there's actually several points on the map already. So if you live in one of these areas, you might consider taking the drive out. And I really love what people are doing. It's so decentralized. You just— we let people put in whatever contact information or coordination they wanted to. So we see like private Signal groups that people are being invited to. We see people leaving their phone numbers and emails.

Yeah.

So get connected with people doing things in your area and add an event on the map. August 1st, we're kicking that off. And, um, yeah, that's the day we all want to synchronize your efforts. So go ahead and put an event on the map. Everyone is welcome, everyone's allowed, and let's bring people together from both sides of the paradigm to do something that matters.

Yeah, and I just want to add to that, that this is just to re-emphasize, this is definitely a nonpartisan movement. Whatever your political persuasion is, You're invited. We wanna step, you know, encourage you to step up. We get emails saying, guys, is there an event in my community? We're not organizing the events. We are nominating you guys to organize in your own community. And also, just as a reminder, as angry and frustrated as people are, this is a nonviolent movement because Clayton, I'm sure you guys have seen the reports. There are government reports and police reports out there coming up with this new category of non— of violent anti-tech extremists. And they're also saying we're funded by China. So people out there who might feel the urge the desire or the frustration to go smash data center, just remember you're playing right into the hands of people who want the rest of the country to believe those of us who are concerned about these things are funded by China, are violent, dangerous extremists. And that's not what we are. We're just regular people from across the country with different backgrounds, different values, who are frankly sick of being ignored and sick of being pushed into this dystopian technocratic state without having a voice.

Yeah, I love it. You reminded me of a question I was going to ask both of you here before we got out of here, which is about being labeled violent extremists in this category. If you speak out against data centers, that you're somehow now, I don't know, probably on some sort of watch list somewhere, or if you speak out on social media or you want to hold one. I mean, it's insane to me. So I don't know, they see these some sort of national security issue now and they don't want you talking out about these data centers. It's tyrannical. That's not what the United States is founded on. I don't understand it at all. But yeah, police showing up at people's doors because they've made posts about data centers? Like, what?

We've also seen the Philadelphia police recently, a report came out, I think from The Intercept, showing that they've been surveying, they're admitting in their own documents to surveying First Amendment protected activity online of people talking about data centers.

Unbelievable.

Absolutely.

You want to talk about violence? Let's talk about the software that runs on these AI data centers. The unmanned targeting software Project Maven built by Palantir that's targeting people overseas with drone strikes. This is the type of software that runs in the data centers, and they have the nerve to turn around and call us violent while they rape and pillage the land and destroy communities of animals and people that are living around them. It's an absolute inversion, and we just need to see right through it and call it like it is.

Well, yeah, it's unbelievable. Well, I want everyone to go out there and support this, and we'll have it linked up in the description here for people to take action on this. Um, I think what you guys are doing is fantastic, and I hope more and more communities across the country start fighting back against this. Uh, stand up, stand up right now. That's what we need to do. Derek and Hakim, great to see both of you. Thank you so much for what you're doing on this, and hopefully we can get the word out big time.

Thank you, Clayton.

Thanks, Clayton.

You bet.