Americans oppose data centers. We went to find out why | America, Actually

Okay, so today we're driving to southern New Jersey and heading to a data center. >> Convertible? Are we sure it's hot enough for that? My man, that's a little aggressive, King.

Okay, so a couple weeks ago, I read a story in NJ.com and it was all about how there's a data center going up in Cumberland County, the poorest county in New Jersey, that's receiving some community push back. And this immediately got my attention because data centers are

going up all across the country and it feels like an issue more people should be talking about. According to one stat I saw, there's more than 4,000 data centers already across America and more than 2,000 that have been announced or are already under construction.

That's kind of crazy. I feel like we should be hearing politicians talk more about this, but we haven't really heard a consensus. One member of Congress told me that he wants to see a moratorium on data centers.

But a senator told me recently that he thinks they're a necessary evil as things like AI become a bigger part of our economy and our society. So that led me to think, let's do some journalism ourselves and figure out what people actually think.

Are data centers really a necessary evil? Let's find out. So, I just got to Vinland, New Jersey, and I'm here to look at the Data 1 data center. Now, this just started construction early last year, and we're

already starting to see some community push back on it. So much so that Data 1 has had to actually delay its plans for expansion. And this has also been showing up in the political arena, too.

Southern New Jersey is home to New Jerseyy's second congressional district, and there's some Democrats who have been making this the focus of their campaigns, hoping to really seize on the community backlash on the issue. One of those Democrats is named Bailey Winder, who we're

going to talk to in a second. Now, Bailey is a young person who's really tried to throw town halls on this issue. He spoke to city council and he's really been saying that the community was not included in the process by

which this data center went into construction. And there's a lot of concerns on the energy front, on the environmental front, and simply just a lot of noise. So, I want to try to untangle this and let's

figure out what's actually going on here. >> Thank you for uh being our tour guide here. >> I appreciate the chance to be with you. >> Can you just give us a sense of like what we're outside right now?

>> This is the new data center in Vineland, New Jersey. We're here in Cumberland County. And just look at the size of this thing. It is gigantic. >> Give me a sense of the scope of this thing.

Like how large are we talking about? How far does this extend? >> It is huge. And we're talking 300 to 350 megawatt, 2.6 million square ft.

>> Wow. >> But one thing I say to people is until you're in front of this, you see it in person, it's hard to put it in perspective. This is not just another project.

It is something that's one of the largest data centers in the whole Northeast. >> Did people know this was happening? Was there community input? Like before we get to the sense of backlash now,

take me what happened then. >> Sure. So, one of the big frustrations, one of the big reasons why there have been so many concerns from the community is because of what you're pointing to, which is