In the quaint town of Eddington, New Mexico, dissent was brewing. A mayor’s campaign forged upon the promise of a shiny, new, data center split the city’s citizens into violent factions. When contrasting views on social values, freedom, and truth boil over, satirical chaos explodes in this distant society.
Eddington may just be a film from 2025, but the discussions and discourse data centers are creating in our state of Minnesota are very real.
What’s up in Lakeville?
In August of 2025, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) filed a lawsuit against the city of Lakeville. The impetus? An opaque-intented, recently published, Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR). The MCEA alleged that the development plan is actually intended to construct a data center, but that the report vaguely skirts around examining the water and electricity the project requires.
An AUAR is an environmental review designed to understand how a plot of land could be potentially developed before the action happens. Each AUAR has a 30-day public commentary period after the initial draft is proposed, part of the buzz that drove the MCEA to hone in on Lakeville. But, as the MCEA noted, these proposals don’t typically specify the exact intended project. All the public heard was “the need for large quantities of water and the mention of noise from “computers and ventilation systems”.
What’s up in Farmington?
As I recently drove through Farmington on my way to a whimsical ski trip at Welch Village, I saw a number of houses bearing anti-data center signs. The community seems to be bubbling with discontent. This debate has actually been ongoing since Spring of 2024 when the project in question was first made public.
“The Farmington Technology Park proposed by Tract, a data center developer from Denver, Colorado, involves 12 data centers and two administrative buildings totaling 2.5 million square feet on 343 acres on the city’s east side, including land annexed from neighboring Castle Rock Township.”
As we passed through, I saw the golf course torn apart and seemingly ready for development. Nearby, a litany of messages was scattered. The land is near residential neighborhoods and rural areas of the Castle Rock Township, property currently owned by the Fountain Valley Golf Course, and the Angus property in Castle Rock owned for years by the Farmington School District. Castle Rock Township Board and Coalition for Responsive Data Center Development have both sued the city of Farmington regarding the project.
While initial proceedings have gone through a Dakota county judge, the court case will now move into an additional discovery phase where further evidence can be presented. A trial could take place in the summer or fall of this year.
Why are data centers being built?
Rumors of an AI bubble can’t yet be deciphered as valid fear or skepticism of growth, but what is certain is that the AI industry is driving the American economy’s progress now. AI contributed to 1% of US GDP growth, outpacing consumer spending, which makes up 70% of the typical economy. Massive investments in the industry are creating optimism in the markets. Some estimates think that AI will compose nearly 10% of the US GDP by the end of the decade. Big companies have sparked headlines with numbers
U.S. private AI investment hit $109.1 billion in 2024. Not only are traditional industry giants like Google involved, but the explosive growth of new AI players is unrivaled. Last week, the chipmaker Nvidia hit a valuation of $5tn. Just three months prior, it became the world’s first $4tn company. OpenAI, recently converted to a for-profit enterprise and mulled an initial public offering at a valuation of $1tn. Altogether, AI is generating unparalleled growth.
Why are there concerns about data centers?
Even data centers come in all shapes, sizes, and scales. The ‘data centers’ we think of today are a new generation of hyperscale data centers. They’re disproportionately dominated by huge corporations – with Amazon, IBM, and Google – maintaining half of all global hyperscale centers. They frequently occupy hundreds of thousands, even reaching a million, square feet. These advanced centers responded to the need for advanced processing, cooling, and scalability that arose along with the wave of LLM’s and AI integration.
“U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2024, according to IEA estimates. That works out to more than 4% of the country’s total electricity consumption last year – and is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand of the entire nation of Pakistan. By 2030, this figure is projected to grow by 133% to 426 TWh.”
Many data centers, such as the ones proposed in Minnesota, can be difficult to track, because they serve more purposes than just AI cooling.
There are additional concerns about how AI will impact our ability to meet climate targets and reverse rising temperatures. Cornell researchers have used advanced data analytics found that, by 2030, the current rate of AI growth would annually put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the emissions equivalent of adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roadways. Centers also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year: equal to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans.”
It’s virtually impossible for the AI industry to reach net zero, and eagerness in tech development is slowing the progress of other sectors as well.
Although current local happenings are slowly becomingly clearer, the rapid burst of AI development still leaves many questions unanswered. Still nascent, new AI tools and companies seem to be created everyday. Just how sustainable is the impact of AI on U.S. economic growth? Are those benefits outweighed by this technology’s environmental harms? And perhaps most relevant to us all, how will Minnesota communities ride this bubble of boom or bust?
