Compass Datacenters is abandoning a massive data center project in Northern Virginia after what Bloomberg described as "intense pushback from local residents."
The retreat comes as local opposition to data center buildouts accelerates nationwide, with residents increasingly furious over surging power demand, soaring electricity bills, land-use battles, and transmission lines cutting through neighborhoods and farmland.
We were the first to describe the epicenter of the data center buildout revolt in the Mid-Atlantic area, all the way back in the summer of 2024. This is happening as the AI infrastructure boom collides with local resistance.
Many Marylanders were upset about transmission lines and rising power bills, some of which were not necessarily due to data centers, but rather failed "green" policies by the far-left regime in Annapolis.
The Brookfield-backed data center company told Bloomberg, "Compass has reached the unfortunate conclusion that we cannot move forward. While we still believe this project offered significant benefits for the region and our neighbors, recent legal actions and compounding regulatory hurdles have effectively closed a viable path forward."
Compass Datacenters was planning to develop more than 800 acres in Prince William County as part of the proposed 2,100-acre Digital Gateway corridor.
The project, along with a neighboring QTS development backed by Blackstone, would have created one of the world’s largest data center hubs to expand Northern Virginia’s global data dominance.
Earlier this month, Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital and co-host of the All-In Podcast, warned on X that polling data shows data centers are more disliked than ICE by the American people.
Palihapitiya posted the polling data:
He warned that local opposition is growing against data centers:
Meanwhile, our most recent report shows that nearly half of U.S. data centers scheduled to break ground this year are at risk of being canceled or delayed.
The great data center land rush is no longer a story about chip stacks and power. It is becoming a localized fight over power bills against tech bros.