Data Centers #1 Non-Residential Construction Starts in 2026

Will corporate CapEx (Capital Expenditure, a.k.a. infrastucture) spending result in enough profits to offset that spending?

Oracle investors seem to have an opinion ...

Stock Market Today, June 11: Oracle Falls After AI Spending Guidance Sparks Cash Flow Concerns
finance.yahoo.com

... Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), an enterprise software and cloud services provider, closed Thursday at $184.10, down 8.53%.

The stock dropped after its fiscal Q4 earnings beat was overshadowed by guidance for sharply higher AI-related capital spending and negative free cash flow. ...

Meanwhile, rural America seems to be turning against data centers ...

Nebraska County Bans Data Centers For Up To A Year
www.gadgetreview.com

... Otoe County suspends permits for up to a year after Google-Tenaska project would need 1,000-3,000 megawatts of power ...

Mississippi Residents Sue xAI Over 'Near Constant Noise' From Data Centers
www.pcmag.com

... The gas turbines at data centers run by Elon Musk's xAI are so loud that it's like being around a 'jet engine' at all times of the day, the lawsuit claims. ...

'The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer': Opposition to Data Centers
www.nytimes.com

In my part of the world, where some of these data centers are being built, there are fierce concerns that the whole thing will be some massive dead end.

Some of the data centers around here, scheduled for construction, won't be.

The fear seems to be that the data centers will end up being the equivalent of Blockbuster franchises much sooner than expected.

Do the people with those fears know what most data centers do?

Do the people with those fears know what most data centers do?
#6 | Posted by sitzkrieg

Make a horrible noise and reduce property values?

I was thinking more along the lines of, all that doom scrolling and streaming the people with those fears do, is being fed by a data center they've lived near for 20 years and still don't know it's already there.

These new data centers aren't going to generate ROI because people are doom scrolling their social media feeds.

We also don't really need any new capacity for that.

In the rural areas it seems to be mostly about water usage. Water they feel is already in short supply and needed by farmers.

"In the rural areas it seems to be mostly about water usage."

Impoverished local flyover governments, desperate to bend over for Coastal investment dollars.

wow...just when I thought I had hit the 2 faced hypocrite gold mine with Platner....

all the "greenies" now looking the other way with each new center

you 2 faced dopes make my "job" so easy.....

We also don't really need any new capacity for that.

#9 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-06-12 01:47 PM | Reply | Flag:

Didn't know you were a Principal Network Engineer too. When did you get that job?

Correction:
Humans don't need any new capacity for that.
Bots, on the other hand...

Correction:
Humans don't need any new capacity for that.
Bots, on the other hand...
#14 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-06-12 06:21 PM

Precisely.

Sacrifificing water, energy and speeding up environmental destruction for a network of spy centers doesn't appeal to anyone other than sociopaths such as "principal network engineers".

The decline is very obvious to anyone paying attention - we will never be released from parasitic industrialists that must be stopped from poisoning and diverting and hoarding resources away from us.

A blue wave is not coming. Backlash is.

$130 billion in data center projects blocked by protests so far this year
arstechnica.com

... It's clear that communities now have an effective playbook to block data center construction. This week, researchers flagged the first quarter of 2026 as producing the "most blocked and delayed data center projects on record," NBC News reported.

Data Center Watch, a project from AI intelligence firm 10a Labs that tracks data center fights around the US, reported that protestors "blocked or delayed at least 75 projects nationwide worth about $130 billion from January through March," NBC News reported.

That's "the most in a three-month period since the group began tracking in 2023," and it shouldn't be parsed as "a cyclical spike," the researchers said. Instead, there's been a "structural shift," as "communities have internalized an opposition playbook, legislative sessions introduced formal regulatory uncertainty, and the number of active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states," researchers said.

The political momentum behind data center protests is expected to influence the upcoming midterm elections, with both parties increasingly sympathizing with resistance as opposition intensifies. ...