抗议者 Carol 等人担忧噪音污染、环境破坏、国家安全（芯片依赖中国）以及 AI 对社交生活的负面影响。 盖洛普民调显示七成美国人反对本地数据中心建设，两党分歧在此议题上趋于一致。
在佛罗里达中部一个灰暗、湿润的星期六早晨，不到十二个人聚集在斯普林希尔分馆图书馆外，抗议在他们社区建设一个超大型数据中心。尽管当下没有直接威胁——赫南多县委员会在六月一致通过了一项为期一年的此类开发项目暂停令——但组织者并不满意。暂时的暂停是不够的。他们想要的是全面禁止。
“我们要战斗，战斗，再战斗，”一位名叫卡罗尔的71岁女性说道，她正在管理一个摆放传单和请愿书的桌子，这些材料是由该组织“赫南多县不要数据中心”准备提交给当地政府的。卡罗尔是一名退休乡村音乐电台主持人，是坚定的保守派，也是自豪的佛罗里达人。她红色T恤上的美国国旗是由小海龟图案组成的。一顶白色太阳帽，上面镶满红色和蓝色水晶，为她遮挡住了上午晚些时候的阳光。“你希望身边就有一个吗？如果你住在距离数据中心15分钟的范围内，昼夜你都会听到：EEEEENNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHH。”
除了噪音污染和环境破坏——她告诉我，数据中心发出的频率会伤害蜜蜂和其他授粉昆虫：https://www.ehn.org/honeybee-emf-power-line-pollination——卡罗尔还担心大规模AI普及带来的社会成本。她告诉我她认识的一位女性，因为“ChatGPT告诉她这么做”，所以切断了所有朋友的联系。
“她会咨询ChatGPT，早上该几点起床，晚上该几点睡觉，谁应该成为她的朋友，”她说。
坦帕郊区的这场小型集会是几乎150场与“以人为本”组织相关抗议活动之一。该组织自称是一种“保守社会运动，致力于确保AI的未来掌握在普通人手中。”
卡萝列举了数据中心造成的各种伤害，其中有些说法可信度较低。她声称，在数据中心附近牧场上饲养的奶牛，生下了死胎。超大规模设施的零部件来自中国：https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-04-01/us-ai-data-center-expansion-relies-on-chinese-electrical-equipment-imports，一个美国的对手，威胁国家安全。卡萝对我说：“我们是在自找麻烦。你知道那些芯片里有什么吗？”我告诉她我不知道。她继续难以置信地说：“我们在盲目信任中国？为了给我们提供芯片吗？”（与此同时，数据中心的保守派支持者声称，中国正在资助美国的反人工智能运动：https://www.npr.org/2026/06/10/nx-s1-5844328/us-china-data-centers-foreign-influence。）
全国各地的社区都在抗议数据中心的建设。最近的一项盖洛普民意调查：https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx 发现，十个美国人中有七个反对在自己所在地区建设数据中心。近三分之二的共和党人和75%的民主党受访者表示，他们反对在本地建设数据中心。美国人可能比以往任何时候都更分化：https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/political-division-united-states，但对数据中心的反对是跨党派的——并且可能巩固出新的、令人意外的政治联盟。推动保守派反弹的关切，与激励自由派的原因类似：数据中心建设和维护的环境成本；人工智能的伦理问题，从其用于大规模政府监控到对用户心理健康的影响；以及担心附近有数据中心会降低生活质量。但右翼反对数据中心背后也存在一些党派方面的担忧，即中国渗透美国技术的威胁。
“人类优先”（Humans First）曾是“人工智能安全中心”（Center for AI Safety）的一个跨党派分支，目前由艾米·克雷默（Amy Kremer）领导：https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/06/16/she-helped-plan-jan-6-rally-now-shes-fighting-rein-ai-companies/。她是一位长期的保守派组织者，可以说是推动共和党民粹主义转向的关键人物之一。克雷默曾是茶党（Tea Party）的早期领导人，也是“支持特朗普的女性”（Women for Trump）和“美国第一女性”（Women for America First）的共同创始人，后者曾在华盛顿特区举办“阻止窃选”集会，该集会最终演变为1月6日的骚乱。（克雷默并未参与冲击国会大厦的人群。）
尽管“人类优先”有党派倾向且克雷默的政治背景显著，但在赫南多县（Hernando County）由其关联组织举办的集会所关注的问题则显然是地方性的。一位竞选农业专员的消防员送来了标牌；一位共和党县委员会候选人顺道前来。集会的最后是一位土地使用专家的讲座，他讲解了如何修改分区条例以防止建设大规模数据中心：https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/hyperscale-data-center——这些数据中心占地至少10000平方英尺，最低能耗达到100兆瓦。在讲座之前，来自“赫南多县无数据中心组织”（No Data Center Hernando County）的成员、IT工作人员金·贝朗热（Kim Belanger）从进步网站“更完美联盟”（More Perfect Union）上调出了一篇关于数据中心的文章。尽管现场观众偏向保守，但她表示，这篇文章“非常有用”。
组织者帕蒂·齐尔赫特（Patti Zirhut）告诉我，她是在Facebook上了解到“人类优先”。参与全国行动日对她来说毫不费力，因为齐尔赫特和她的朋友们已经成立了“赫南多县无数据中心组织”，以阻止他们社区的数据中心建设。
“我非常保守，根本不认同民主党的那些理念，”齐尔赫特告诉我。但她也对佛罗里达州的共和党领导层感到被背叛。她曾经非常支持州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯（Ron DeSantis）——一开始如此。但在他的第二任期，她表示，“他只顾发展经济，邀请所有人来这里，把我们的州搞得乱七八糟。”
德桑蒂斯将自己定位为一个人工智能怀疑论者，并在五月签署了一项法律，要求超大规模数据中心自行承担公用事业费用，并允许地方政府为数据中心项目设定用水规定。但据《坦帕湾时报》报道，他的政府却给数据中心开发商提供了数百万美元的税收减免：https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2026/06/26/desantis-data-center-florida-byron-donalds-tax-break/。据报道，州长推动修改州内数据中心的税收豁免政策，使其只适用于超大规模设施。
在图书馆外的长桌旁，Zirhut和她的朋友们讨论德桑蒂斯的潜在接班人。“这可能是你一生中最重要的州长选举，”Belanger对我说。她还担心德桑蒂斯支持的一项投票修正案：https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2026/05/27/desantis-property-tax-exemption-homestead-special-session/ 将取消大多数房主的财产税，因为这会剥夺县政府亟需的财政收入——有可能使数据中心等开发项目更具吸引力。
“如果Byron Donalds赢得初选，我就投给民主党。我不会投票给他。”
Zirhut和其他人对共和党州长初选领先候选人、在佛罗里达大力支持数据中心建设的众议员Byron Donalds感到失望。“我就是不明白为什么特朗普会支持他，”其中一人说。
“我不是反对数据中心。我支持有一个计划，”Donals在二月份表示：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyclZMW9_wk。“未来数据中心将成为美国生活的一个组成部分。”Donals曾表示，他希望为佛罗里达引入更多外部投资——这一评论后来反而成为困扰他的话题。“我的愿景是让佛罗里达成为世界金融中心，”他在由The Hill主办的一次活动中说道：https://www.facebook.com/TheHillEvents/videos/my-goal-is-to-make-florida-the-financial-capital-of-the-world-were-ranked-1-in-s/1674737633225957/。
“这绝不是我们在佛罗里达想要的，”Zirhut对我说。
唐纳兹对数据中心的支持现在正在使他失去年内党内的支持者：https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2026/07/22/ai-data-center-byron-donalds-david-jolly-james-fishback/。最近的攻击性广告集中在他从科技行业获得的支持，包括来自“引领未来（Leading the Future）”的超过500万美元的捐款：/column/934684/anthropic-openai-super-pac-beef-alex-bores，这是一家100万美元的亲AI超级政治行动委员会（super PAC），其资金来源包括Andreessen Horowitz和Palantir的Joe Lonsdale，根据《塔拉哈西民主报》（Tallahassee Democrat）的报道：https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/07/10/byron-donalds-on-ai-data-center-hot-seat-in-florida-gov-race/90834200007/，以及来自American Mission的50万美元，该机构本身也由“引领未来”资助。唐纳兹似乎在支持他的行业和他需要赢得初选的选民之间寻求中间立场。周一，他宣布了一项立法：https://apnews.com/article/byron-donalds-florida-data-centers-artificial-intelligence-c8b93e8ca7e0b47bad7411b6d05717e0，旨在防止数据中心推高公用事业成本。
全州范围内对数据中心的反对声音普遍存在。根据Politico的报道：https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/28/florida-data-centers-developers-opposition-00978255，全州超过20个县和市曾讨论或通过了暂停建设数据中心的决定。在一些社区内，反弹力度强大到足以阻止开发商。6月，Citrus县一项备受争议的数据中心提案发起者在县委员会批准为期一年的暂停决定后撤销了计划：https://www.fox13news.com/news/citrus-county-data-center-proposal-withdrawn-resident-backlash-hearings-canceled，该计划原本拟在社区内建设一个占地800英亩的数据中心：https://www.fox13news.com/news/citrus-county-commission-approves-freeze-ai-data-center-rezoning-applications，对数据中心的重新分区申请进行了冻结。
“不幸的是，当地对数据中心的暂停建设会传递出一个信号，即该地区对数据中心和其他重大经济发展项目而言都是关闭的，”数据中心联盟（一个行业游说组织）州政策和政府事务执行副总裁丹·迪奥里奥告诉《The Verge》。但这正是Zirhut和其他组织者所希望的。
“我们不希望人们失去工作，我们的国家被人工智能统治，并像中国人民那样生活，在那里我们的金钱被控制，我们所做的一切都被监视，”她说。
虽然Zirhut是一名终身共和党人，但数据中心问题——以及更广泛的发展问题——让她做出了一些意想不到的政治妥协。
“如果拜伦·唐纳兹赢得初选，我会投票给民主党。我不会投给他，”她告诉我，并补充说她也愿意投票给反对数据中心的独立候选人。“我认为很多人都是这样的。这与党派无关。真的无关。这关乎人类生命。”
On a gray, humid Saturday morning in central Florida, a little under a dozen people gathered outside the Spring Hill Branch Library to protest the construction of a hyperscale data center in their community. There was no immediate threat — the Hernando County commission had unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on such developments in June — but the organizers weren’t satisfied. A temporary pause wouldn’t be enough. They wanted a ban.
“We are going to fight, fight, fight,” said a 71-year-old woman named Carol, who was manning a table with flyers and a petition the group, No Data Centers Hernando County, planned on presenting to the local government. Carol, a retired country music radio host, is a staunch conservative and a proud Floridian. The American flag on her red T-shirt was made up of little sea turtles. A white visor, bedazzled with red and blue rhinestones, shielded her face from the late-morning sun. “How would you like to have one by you? If you live within 15 minutes of a data center, night and day you’re going to hear: EEEEENNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHH .”
Beyond the noise pollution and environmental destruction — the frequencies emitted by data centers, she told me, hurt bees and other pollinators：https://www.ehn.org/honeybee-emf-power-line-pollination — Carol was concerned about the social cost of mass AI adoption. She told me about a woman she knows who cut off all her friends because “ChatGPT told her to.”
“She consults with ChatGPT what time she should wake up in the morning, what time she should go to bed, who should be her friends,” she said.
The small rally in this Tampa exurb was one of nearly 150 protests affiliated with Humans First, which describes itself as a “conservative social movement that is dedicated to ensuring that the future of AI is in the hands of everyday people.”
Carol recited a litany of harms caused by data centers, some of them more dubious than others. Cows raised on ranches near data centers, she claimed, were giving birth to stillborn calves. Hyperscale facilities source their parts from China：https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-04-01/us-ai-data-center-expansion-relies-on-chinese-electrical-equipment-imports, an American adversary, threatening national security. “We’re setting ourselves up,” Carol told me. “Do you know what’s in those chips?” I told her I do not. “We’re blindly trusting the Chinese?” she continued, incredulous. “To give us chips?” (Conservative proponents of data centers, meanwhile, claim China is funding anti-AI campaigns：https://www.npr.org/2026/06/10/nx-s1-5844328/us-china-data-centers-foreign-influence in the United States.)
Communities across the country are pushing back on data center construction. A recent Gallup poll：https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx found that seven in 10 Americans oppose construction of data centers in their area. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats surveyed said they objected to local data center construction. Americans may be more polarized than ever：https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/political-division-united-states, but the backlash to data centers is bipartisan — and it may cement new, surprising political alliances. The concerns animating the conservative backlash are similar to those motivating liberals: the environmental costs of data center construction and maintenance; the ethical problems of AI, ranging from its use for mass government surveillance to its effects on users’ mental health; and fears that having a data center nearby will hurt their quality of life. But there are also some partisan anxieties behind the right-wing data center backlash, namely the threat of Chinese infiltration of US technology.
Humans First, a once-bipartisan offshoot of the Center for AI Safety, is helmed by Amy Kremer：https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/06/16/she-helped-plan-jan-6-rally-now-shes-fighting-rein-ai-companies/, a longtime conservative organizer who is arguably one of the people most responsible for the Republican Party’s populist turn. Kremer was an early leader of the Tea Party and a cofounder of both Women for Trump and Women for America First, the latter of which hosted the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, DC, that devolved into the January 6th riots. (Kremer was not among those who stormed the Capitol.)
Despite Humans First’s partisan bent and Kremer’s political bona fides, the concerns at the Humans First-affiliated rally in Hernando County were decidedly local. A firefighter running for agricultural commissioner dropped off signs; a Republican candidate for county commissioner stopped by. The gathering ended with a lecture from a land use expert who explained how to change zoning codes to prevent the construction of hyperscale data centers：https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/hyperscale-data-center — those that occupy at least 10,000 square feet and have a minimum energy draw of 100 megawatts. Before the lecture, No Data Center Hernando County member Kim Belanger, who works in IT, pulled up an article on data centers from the progressive website More Perfect Union. Even though the room skewed conservative, the article, she said, was “very informative.”
Patti Zirhut, the organizer, told me that she found out about Humans First on Facebook. Participating in the national day of action was a no-brainer, since Zirhut and her friends had already started No Data Center Hernando County to thwart data center construction in their community.
“I am very conservative and I don’t believe in all the stuff that Democrats believe in at all,” Zirhut told me. But she also feels betrayed by Florida’s Republican leadership. She was a big fan of Gov. Ron DeSantis — at first. But in his second term, she said, “he’s been nothing but pro-development, just inviting everybody here, tearing up our state.”
DeSantis has positioned himself as an AI skeptic and signed a law in May requiring hyperscale data centers to cover their own utility costs and letting local governments set water use regulations for data center projects. But his administration has given data center developers millions in tax breaks, according to the Tampa Bay Times：https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2026/06/26/desantis-data-center-florida-byron-donalds-tax-break/. The governor reportedly pushed to alter the state’s tax exemption for data centers so it would only apply to hyperscale facilities.
As they tabled outside the library, Zirhut and her friends discussed DeSantis’ prospective successors. “This is probably the most important governor’s race of your lifetime,” Belanger told me. She’s also concerned about a DeSantis-backed ballot amendment：https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2026/05/27/desantis-property-tax-exemption-homestead-special-session/ that would eliminate property taxes for most homeowners, since it would deprive county governments of much-needed revenue — potentially making developments like data centers more enticing.
“If Byron Donalds wins the primary, I’m voting Democrat. I will not vote for him.”
Zirhut and the others were disappointed by Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican front-runner in the gubernatorial primary and a vocal supporter of data center construction in Florida. “I just don’t understand why Trump would back him,” one of them said.
“I’m not anti-data center. I’m pro having a plan,” Donalds said in February：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyclZMW9_wk. “Data centers are going to be a function of American life going forward.” Donalds has said he wants to bring more outside investment to Florida — a comment that has since come back to haunt him. “My vision is to make Florida the financial capital of the world,” he said at an event hosted by The Hill ：https://www.facebook.com/TheHillEvents/videos/my-goal-is-to-make-florida-the-financial-capital-of-the-world-were-ranked-1-in-s/1674737633225957/.
“That is not what we want here in Florida at all,” Zirhut told me.
Donalds’ support for data centers is now costing him supporters from his own party：https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2026/07/22/ai-data-center-byron-donalds-david-jolly-james-fishback/. Recent attack ads have focused on the support he’s received from the tech industry, including more than $5 million in donations from Leading the Future：/column/934684/anthropic-openai-super-pac-beef-alex-bores, a $100 million pro-AI super PAC whose funders include Andreessen Horowitz and Joe Lonsdale of Palantir, according to the Tallahassee Democrat：https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/07/10/byron-donalds-on-ai-data-center-hot-seat-in-florida-gov-race/90834200007/, as well as $500,000 from American Mission, which is itself funded by Leading the Future. Donalds appears to be staking out a middle ground between the industry that supports him and the voters whose support he needs to win the primary. On Monday, he announced legislation：https://apnews.com/article/byron-donalds-florida-data-centers-artificial-intelligence-c8b93e8ca7e0b47bad7411b6d05717e0 that would prevent data centers from driving up utility costs.
Opposition to data centers is widespread throughout the state. More than 20 counties and municipalities throughout the state have discussed or passed moratoria on data center construction, Politico reports：https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/28/florida-data-centers-developers-opposition-00978255. In some communities, the backlash has been strong enough to deter developers. In June, the sponsor behind a controversial data center proposal in Citrus County withdrew its plan：https://www.fox13news.com/news/citrus-county-data-center-proposal-withdrawn-resident-backlash-hearings-canceled to build an 800-acre data center in the community after the county commission approved a one-year moratorium：https://www.fox13news.com/news/citrus-county-commission-approves-freeze-ai-data-center-rezoning-applications on rezoning applications for data centers.
“Unfortunately, local moratoriums on data centers would send a signal that the area is closed for business, both for data centers and for other significant economic development projects,” Dan Diorio, executive vice president of state policy and government affairs at the Data Center Coalition, an industry lobbying group, told The Verge . But that’s exactly what Zirhut and other organizers want.
“We don’t want people to lose jobs, and our country to be run by AI, and live like people in China, where our money is controlled and everything we do is looked at,” she said.
Though Zirhut is a lifelong Republican, the data center issue — and the bigger question of development — has led to some unexpected political compromises for her.
“If Byron Donalds wins the primary, I’m voting Democrat. I will not vote for him,” she told me, adding that she’d also be willing to vote for an independent candidate who opposed data centers. “I think a lot of people are like that. It’s not about the party. It’s not. It’s about human life.”
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