Op-Ed: Republicans should be helping communities benefit from data centers, not shut them out

Republicans have long been pro-business, pro-growth, and pro-jobs. That position has helped them win over voters and, most importantly, build stronger economies where they govern.

And it should not carry any less weight when data centers are involved.

Yet some Republicans are souring on data center investments, from Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has put new data center grid approvals and environmental permits on hold, to Maryland, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox has called for an outright ban.

Of course, elected officials are right to take their constituents’ concerns seriously. But the narrative that data centers are an assured disaster for their communities has swallowed the entire debate, leaving little room for evidence that challenges it.

Absent from the doomsday rhetoric is not only how much of modern life already depends on this decades-old infrastructure – from storing files in the cloud to posting reels on Instagram to streaming a movie – but also the enormous investment, jobs, tax revenue, and technological advances building it out further makes possible.

Careful planning and responsible development can also prevent many of the problems data center opponents so often present as inevitable.

Those in the GOP letting anti-data center sentiment dictate policy are closing the door on the opportunity and growth their party has long championed, and, frankly, jeopardizing the future of the U.S. economy.

These projects are creating employment opportunities on a massive scale, with electricians, construction crews, and other skilled workers in high demand during construction alone. Mike Rowe recently described meeting electricians under 30 working at a Texas data center who were earning $240,000 to $280,000 a year, with substantial overtime.

Across the country, a 2025 American Edge Project report estimates that data centers announced or under construction could generate roughly 4.7 million temporary construction jobs and 697,000 permanent operating jobs.

The employment benefits also extend to businesses using the technology. Ramp’s Economics Lab found that companies investing heavily in AI increased headcount by 10.2% over two years after adoption, with entry-level hiring up 12%. In Pennsylvania, a submarine-parts manufacturer was able to add a third shift after AI shortened production planning. Faster planning meant more parts to make, and more workers needed to make them.

Communities that have welcomed these projects are also seeing lower taxes and more funding for public services. Data centers in Virginia’s Loudoun County, for example, generate 38% of the county’s General Fund revenue and have helped it lower residents’ property and vehicle tax rates and even eliminate an annual vehicle license fee.

In Louisiana’s Richland Parish, tax revenue tied to Meta’s data-center construction helped fund teacher bonuses of up to $50,935 this year. In Janesville, Wisconsin, a proposed data-center project would fund an estimated $30 million cleanup of a contaminated former General Motors site that has sat unused for years.

These are quite substantial gains for communities repeatedly told that data centers will leave them worse off.

Even the warnings about soaring electricity bills run into an inconvenient finding in a study covering 2015-2024, which found that data centers caused average U.S. residential electricity rates to fall, not rise, and that doubling a state’s data center capacity was associated with roughly 3.5% lower residential rates.

The warnings about water use also leave out cooling methods like Microsoft’s new closed-loop design, which consumes no new water for cooling after the initial fill, or projects like Google’s planned Missouri facility, which won’t use water to cool its equipment, only for ordinary needs such as kitchens.

What these projects deliver and how they address local concerns deserve a fuller hearing.

And as it turns out, the public is quite willing to give them one.

Although recent polling found that voters initially opposed data centers in their area by a 19-point margin, support flipped when the projects came with conditions such as developers covering grid upgrades, helping lower property taxes, increasing school funding, or investing in local water infrastructure. Even just one condition tested turned opposition into support.

Republicans have a more receptive audience than they might think. They should be leading the push for responsible development and the growth it can bring, locally and nationally.

Answering reflexive backlash with broad bans and prolonged restrictions instead threatens to drive away jobs and investment, deprive communities of tax revenue, and choke off the computing capacity American businesses need to become more productive and compete globally.

The GOP has long argued that economic strength is essential to national success. As both increasingly depend on advanced computing, the party’s commitment to growth needs to extend to the infrastructure supporting it.