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A bitter battle over a massive AI data center planned for the Bay Area has gone national after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly backed a teen activist spearheading a campaign to kill the project.
A 76-acre data center campus planned for East Bay suburb Pittsburg has sparked a revolt among locals who say the facility will suck up resources, spew diesel exhaust and cause a racket in the quiet community — and now even the Democratic Socialist darling Ocasio-Cortez has waded into the tense standoff amid a growing national backlash against data centers.
Four hundred opponents, including a teen activist named Sadie Cisneros, packed a public meeting this week in a last-minute effort to block the hated project, dubbed AVAIO Perseus Data Center.
The high school-aged data center critic’s testimony went huge viral, with one clip racking up 9 million views and more than 15,000 comments.
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“Data centers not only guzzle huge amounts of energy but they also are creating heat islands, warming up the land around them by up to 16 degrees Farenheit,” Cisneros claimed at a recent Pittsburg City Council hearing, citing reports of tinnitus and other health problems linked to data centers.
Ocasio-Cortez, herself a data center critic, chimed in on Instagram.
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“Thank YOU for being an example and showing that we ALL can speak up, make a difference, and carry on with our day,” the Bronx rep wrote in a comment that was “liked” 20,000 times.
“This is real influence! And it DOES have an impact,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez has called for a national moratorium on data center construction alongside widespread doubts about the sites cropping up nationwide. Data center supporters, however, have labeled crackdowns like a temporary ban imposed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul a “panic” that will help America’s adversaries.
The Pittsburg city council voted 5-0 in favor of the project in 2024, arguing the development will create jobs and help the town’s bottom line.
The massive project is slated to be built on a former municipal golf course that was closed in 2018, near a residential development and schools.
The tech campus, from the company Avaio Digital, will have a 99 megawatt capacity to start and has been hailed as a “major investment in our local economy” by Pittsburg Mayor Juan Antonio Banales.
But locals who worry their lives could be upended by construction, noise and environmental impacts say they will continue fighting the project.
“Horrible. Horrible. I, gosh, should we move? You know, we’re really considering moving,” said Carmen Magallan, who lives across the street from the data center site, according to CBS News.
“This is a neighborhood. There’s so many homes around here. How can you just plop it right down there?” she said.
Pittsburg officials have scheduled a “community engagement workshop” about the project for July 30, opting to hold a Zoom meeting instead of an in-person hearing.
