In the current AI arms race, US tech giants are racing to invest massive sums, building data centers that cost tens of billions of dollars each. However, this surge in construction has simultaneously brought to light the growing conflict between these tech behemoths and local communities, centered on the enormous demand for electricity and water resources required by these facilities, sparking resident dissatisfaction and resistance. Microsoft has now presented a standard answer, demonstrating how tech giants can responsibly build data centers to achieve a win-win situation for both technological innovation and local employment and livelihoods. Will Musk follow suit this time?

Rejecting subsidies and tax breaks, Microsoft's President Brad Smith officially unveiled a plan titled "Community-First AI Infrastructure," which outlines five key commitments for building data centers: refusing electricity subsidies, reducing water usage, forgoing tax rebates, creating jobs, and giving back to the community. The plan aims to position Microsoft as a "good neighbor," ensuring that the benefits of AI infrastructure development outweigh the costs and are shared with local residents. The tech giant pledged that in the future construction and operation of its data centers, it will ensure it does not raise electricity prices for local residents, proactively bears the additional power costs generated by the data centers, and refuses local electricity subsidies; minimizes water consumption through efficient cooling technologies, invests in local water systems, and returns more water than it consumes; creates tangible job opportunities for local residents; increases the tax base for local hospitals, schools, parks, and libraries, rejecting any investment attraction tax incentives; and strengthens community building by investing in local AI training and non-profit organizations. Smith candidly admitted in a statement: "The reality is, infrastructure construction only moves forward when communities believe the benefits outweigh the costs. And we are at a moment when people have many concerns." He listed public worries about data centers: "They worry about electricity price hikes, they worry about the impact on their water supply. They look at this technology and ask what it means for the jobs of the future? What does it mean for adults working today? What does it mean for their children?" Importantly, Microsoft has already begun implementing these commitments in several specific regions. In Arizona, Microsoft is collaborating with municipal authorities to locate and repair pipe leaks, helping the community reduce freshwater loss. The company is also piloting closed-loop cooling systems at its data centers in Arizona and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, effectively reducing water consumption to zero. Microsoft stated it aims to make zero-water cooling the "primary cooling method" within its own investment portfolio. Microsoft's commitments received praise from the US President. Trump stated on social media and in public that he does not want American citizens to foot the bill for rising electricity costs due to large tech company data centers, emphasizing that tech giants should "pay their way" for their own energy consumption, and Microsoft is the first major tech company to answer this call. Microsoft's move has sparked widespread discussion within the US tech industry because it touches on an increasingly severe social problem: in the context of the AI arms race, tech giants are building data centers aggressively across the US and globally, yet these massive facilities often fail to bring corresponding economic benefits to local residents, instead placing a heavy resource burden on communities.

To understand why Microsoft made such commitments, one must first grasp the dilemmas communities across the US are experiencing under the data center construction boom. US tech giants are engaged in an unprecedented data center race, with investment scales far exceeding previous expectations. In 2025, the combined capital expenditure of the four giants—Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta—is projected to reach a staggering $400 billion, with three-quarters directly allocated to AI infrastructure construction. Furthermore, this arms race is intensifying. According to CreditSights forecasts, the total capital expenditure of the five major hyperscale cloud providers (plus Oracle) will exceed $600 billion this year, a 36% increase from last year and a 135% surge from two years ago. Goldman Sachs anticipates that from 2025 to 2027, the cumulative capital expenditure of hyperscale cloud providers will reach $1.15 trillion, 2.4 times the amount spent between 2022 and 2024. This unprecedented level of investment is approaching historical limits of capital intensity. On the other hand, the electricity consumption of data centers is growing at an alarming rate, posing an unprecedented challenge to the US energy system. According to recent studies by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the total electricity consumption of US data centers in 2024 is approximately 183 terawatt-hours (TWh), accounting for 4.4% of the nation's total electricity usage. With this wave of data center investment, US data center electricity consumption is expected to exceed 250 TWh by 2026, and reach 400-426 TWh by 2030, constituting 6.7% to 12% of total US electricity demand. A report from the US Energy Information Administration estimates that data center electricity load growth has tripled over the past decade and is projected to double or even quadruple again by 2028.

While data centers are drastically increasing electricity demand, the growth in US power generation capacity has not kept significant pace, creating a potential crisis for residential electricity supply. Even more concerning is the surge in electricity prices. A Bloomberg analysis from last September found that in regions dense with data centers, wholesale electricity prices had soared by up to 267% over five years. Nationwide, residential electricity bills in 2025 were 13% higher than the previous year. In December last year, US Congress members sent a letter to seven tech companies, accusing them of passing tens of billions in infrastructure upgrade costs onto ordinary Americans. The letter stated: "We write because of alarming reports that tech companies are shifting the costs of building and operating data centers onto ordinary Americans, as energy use by AI data centers causes residential electricity bills to spike in nearby communities." Water resource consumption is equally worrying. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that in 2023, US data centers used 64.4 million tons of water for cooling, a figure that could double or even quadruple by 2028, reaching 129 to 258 million tons. The indirect water usage for power generation was even higher, at 799 million tons, 12 times the direct water consumption. Research from the University of Houston found that data centers in Texas may have consumed up to 185 million tons of water last year, potentially increasing to 1.51 billion tons by 2030—equivalent to lowering the water level of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US, by over 5 meters in a single year. Adding to community disappointment are employment prospects. Although data centers create numerous construction jobs during the building phase, once operational, the number of long-term employees required is extremely limited. A typical large data center might only need 50 to 100 full-time staff.

The situation in Arizona, USA, best illustrates the severity of the problem. The Phoenix area, with its relatively lenient environmental and labor policies, lower electricity prices, tax incentives, and location on major fiber optic routes from Texas to Southern California, has become a prime location for major companies to build data centers, deploying approximately 707 megawatts of IT capacity. Companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta all have data centers in the region. However, while these tech giants consume vast resources, many indigenous people living on the Navajo Reservation just几十公里 away still live without access to electricity. A Washington Post report highlighted the stories of residents near Arizona's data centers. The Cameron Native American reservation is one of the largest areas in the US without electricity. Despite abundant solar energy, its sparse population discourages corporate investment in power stations or grid infrastructure. The 15,000 families living here seem stuck in the last century—no air conditioning, no refrigerators, reliant on solar power for lighting, and dependent on canned food because produce spoils quickly in the desert heat. This extreme resource inequality starkly contrasts with the power-hungry data centers just miles away. Although tech giants are not obligated to invest in improving local living standards, and the落后的 local infrastructure is not their direct responsibility, the massive electricity and water consumption of data centers has still provoked strong resentment among residents. In southern Arizona, the approval processes for data center projects in Tucson and Marana sparked intense community protests. The Tucson City Council unanimously rejected the "Project Blue" data center proposal from Beale Infrastructure due to concerns about pressure on the city's water resources and environmental impact. That project initially planned to use a water-cooling system, requiring 13 million tons of water annually—equivalent to the usage of 25,000 households. This angered locals already facing severe water scarcity. After the rejection, Beale opted for air cooling instead and procured nearly 300 megawatts of electricity from the local utility—enough to power about 45,000 Arizona homes. This move, in turn, raised concerns about power shortages and price hikes among residents. While Beale promised $5 billion in capital investment, $145 million in town taxes, and 4,200 construction jobs, opponents worried that short-term construction work and tax revenue could not offset long-term electricity price increases and resource pressure. Critics argued that such investment opportunities come at the expense of the community's long-term well-being.

If Arizona illustrates the tension between data centers and community resources, then Musk's xAI approach in Memphis, Tennessee, pushes this conflict to an extreme. To accelerate the construction of its AI supercomputer "Colossus," Musk employed a series of unconventional measures, even purchasing an entire power plant overseas and shipping it to the US. In September 2024, xAI launched its supercomputing center at a废弃 factory in Memphis. This platform, claimed to be the world's largest AI training system, was initially equipped with 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, expanded to 200,000 three months later, with plans to eventually scale to 1 million GPUs. To meet the enormous power demand, xAI procured 150 megawatts of electricity from Memphis Light, Gas and Water—enough to power 100,000 homes. But 150 megawatts was far from sufficient. While waiting for a formal grid connection, xAI deployed over 40 portable natural gas turbines, with a combined capacity exceeding 400 megawatts. The Southern Environmental Law Center noted these turbines emit 1,200 to 2,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides annually, potentially making the facility "the largest industrial source of nitrogen oxide emissions in Memphis." Researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, found that after xAI began operations, peak nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the area around the facility increased by 79%. More shockingly, xAI began operating these turbines without obtaining necessary air permits. The company exploited a local regulatory loophole allowing temporary turbines to operate at a site for less than a year without a permit. It wasn't until January 2025, after months of operation, that xAI applied to the Shelby County Health Department for permits for 15 of the turbines. At a public hearing last April, residents living near the Colossus facility complained about air quality issues, stating they suffer from chronic respiratory illnesses from living in Memphis's heavily polluted area. One woman said she smells "everything but the right thing, and the right thing is clean air." The facility is located in Southwest Memphis, an area known for its Black communities and poor air quality, surrounded by 17 other polluting facilities, including refineries, steel plants, and gas-fired power plants. KeShaun Pearson, president of the Memphis Community Against Pollution organization, said: "The ongoing policy violence that allows xAI to continuously damage our lungs in Southwest Memphis is immoral. We deserve clean air, not silent suffocation."

Musk confirmed in July 2025 that to further expand computing power, xAI was purchasing a complete power plant from overseas and shipping it to Memphis—a natural gas combined-cycle gas turbine plant with a capacity of up to 2 gigawatts. Musk stated that building such a facility in the US would take too long, so he chose to fast-track the project. Late last year, xAI also announced the purchase of a third plot of land in Mississippi for a data center, expected to have a total computing capacity nearing 2 gigawatts—an electricity consumption equivalent to 1.5 million US households. This exemplifies Musk's consistent emphasis on efficiency above all. This operational style has also created serious friction with the regulation-heavy, environmentally focused Democratic government in California, prompting Musk in recent years to shift operations and investments for nearly all his companies to Republican-leaning "red states" like Texas and Tennessee with looser regulations.

Compared to Musk's aggressive approach, other tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta, while more attentive to their environmental image, have also sparked widespread controversy regarding resource consumption. Google's global operations consumed approximately 24.2 million tons of water in 2023, 95% of which was used by its data centers. Its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, consumed about 3.785 million tons of water in 2024, the highest among all its data centers. Meta's situation is similar, consuming roughly 3.08 million tons of water globally in 2023, with 95% used by its data centers. In 2021, Meta's data centers withdrew approximately 4.92 million tons of water worldwide, about 1.39 million tons of which came from areas experiencing high water stress. These companies have all set goals to achieve "water positive" status by 2030, meaning they aim to replenish more water than they consume by investing in watershed restoration and clean water projects elsewhere. But critics point out that such "water offsetting" is not as effective as carbon offsetting. Water issues are local; improving water access in one region doesn't help a distant community that has lost its water. More concerning is the lack of data transparency from these companies. Many treat water usage as proprietary information, and local utilities often refuse to release customer-specific data, making it difficult for communities and regulators to assess the true impact on local water supplies. When the Texas Water Development Board investigated data center water usage, only one-third of operators responded. In The Dalles, Oregon, Google only disclosed that its local data center directly used 1.35 million tons of water in 2021—over a quarter of the city's total water supply—after being sued.

Amazon's situation is more complex. Although the company claims its data centers use far less water than clothing manufacturing or beef production, investigations revealed that three new data centers planned by Amazon in the Aragon region of Spain would use approximately 755,700 tons of water annually—enough to irrigate 233 hectares of corn. This figure does not include water used for power generation. An investigation by the non-profit SourceMaterial found that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are operating and building numerous data centers in some of the world's most arid regions, significantly impacting local populations already facing water scarcity. Lorena Jaume-Palasí, founder of the Ethical Tech Society, stated: "The water issue will become critical. From a resource perspective, the resilience of these communities will be very difficult."

Faced with the expansion of tech giants, an increasing number of communities are organizing to resist, refusing to allow data centers to be built in their backyards. Residents realize that the short-term tax revenue and construction jobs offered by data centers are far from sufficient compensation for long-term resource pressure, rising electricity prices, and environmental degradation. In Indianapolis, Indiana, Google had planned to build a large data center campus spanning approximately 1.9 million square feet. The project triggered strong opposition from local residents, who feared the data center would consume vast amounts of water and electricity long-term while offering only a limited number of primarily technical jobs, providing minimal real benefit to the community. After months of protests, Google ultimately announced during a hearing last September that it was abandoning the investment plan. Local residents present erupted in cheers, having successfully resisted the data center project. Near Menomonie, Wisconsin, a proposed data center project sparked public opposition. People objected to building on prime farmland and expressed concerns about a lack of transparency. In northeastern Louisiana, where Meta's $10 billion Hyperion facility is under construction, residents continuously protest, complaining about increased traffic and safety risks near schools and residences. The lack of long-term employment opportunities is another point of public dissatisfaction. Professor Andrew Chien of University of Chicago Computer Science said: "Because most of the upfront investment is about infrastructure, the investment is very good for the US economy." But he added that the challenge for communities is translating this initial investment into long-term benefits, like high-paying jobs. Since operating data centers doesn't require many people, these facilities typically cannot support many permanent jobs once built.

It is against this backdrop that Microsoft's five-point commitment plan appears particularly significant. The company not only pledges not to seek electricity subsidies or tax incentives but also proactively states it will pay high enough electricity rates to cover the data centers' costs, ensuring these costs are not passed on to local residents. Microsoft also commits to improving data center water intensity by 40% by 2030 and replenishing more water than it consumes. Regarding employment, Microsoft plans to provide training for construction workers and data center operators and invest in local AI education and non-profit organizations.

The data center boom reflects a deeper issue: what kind of contract is needed between tech companies and society in the AI era? Tech giants claim AI will bring enormous economic benefits and social progress. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called AI a "general-purpose technology," akin to electricity or computer chips, believing it will boost productivity across multiple economic sectors. But the question remains: who bears the cost of this progress? And who reaps the benefits? The current reality is this: costs are borne by community residents—higher electricity bills, strained water resources, worse air quality, destroyed farmland; while benefits are primarily enjoyed by tech companies and their investors—trillion-dollar valuations, hefty profits, monopolistic market positions. This unequal distribution is unsustainable and unjust. Microsoft's five-point commitment offers a framework for an answer: tech companies must pay for their resource consumption, must create local jobs, must give back to communities, and must assume environmental responsibility. But this framework needs to evolve from voluntary pledges to mandatory requirements, from the goodwill of individual companies to an industry-wide standard. Inquiries from US Congress and resistance from communities nationwide indicate that the public is beginning to demand a renegotiation of this social contract. Data centers should not be black holes extracting resources but should become infrastructure that genuinely benefits communities. This requires stricter regulation, greater transparency, fairer cost-sharing, and more consideration for the long-term interests of local communities. Now, Microsoft has set an example for all tech giants. They need to prove that the future of AI is not built on the sacrifice of communities but on a foundation of genuine mutual benefit. But the real test is: will other tech giants follow suit? More importantly, will these promises be truly kept?