{"id":463285,"date":"2026-09-14T11:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463285\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T11:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:40:15","slug":"full-on-backlash-against-data-centers-occurring-as-san-jose-courts-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463285\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Full-on Backlash\u2019 Against Data Centers Occurring as San Jos\u00e9 Courts Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Clara<\/a> has quietly become California\u2019s data center capital. The sleepy suburb known for its quiet streets and professional football stadium is home to 60 data centers \u2014 more than any other city on the West Coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheap electricity sold by the city\u2019s own power company has for years attracted major tech firms and data center developers seeking millions of dollars in savings over PG&E rates as they build out the hulking, cube-like structures full of computers, networking and cooling equipment. The city and its planners have also made it easy on developers seeking guidance and approvals, which are largely handled by the city\u2019s planning commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now some local lawmakers are raising concerns. Kevin Park, a council member and tech worker who is running for mayor, said the city has gone too far, as the power company\u2019s supply is strained and it has raised rates on residents to pay for major infrastructure upgrades.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s stop building data centers. And the water and the electricity and all the things that we\u2019ll save, let\u2019s use them for other things,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the current artificial intelligence boom fuels rising demand for data centers in Silicon Valley, concern about their effects on the environment, resources and surrounding communities has burst into public discourse and turned the issue into a political hot potato. Local lawmakers are now scrambling to weigh constituents\u2019 concerns against the prospect of embracing the economic windfall proponents say data centers can bring.<\/p>\n

\"\"Buildings in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jos\u00e9 that Google plans to modify to operate in a capacity similar to a data center on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

While South Bay cities have so far not enacted temporary moratoriums like the one-year ban Oakley in the East Bay recently passed, some places, like Gilroy, have tightened data center approvals amid pushback to the massive buildings seemingly rising overnight. Statewide polling suggests most residents oppose building data centers to support the AI industry in their area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even in a city like Santa Clara, which has long leaned on data centers as a driver of revenue, some politicians, like Park, are calling for a halt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we took down a single mid-size data center using 20 to 40 megawatts of power, we could actually double the population of the city and not need a single additional watt of power,\u201d Park said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city, which has about 130,000 residents, is also home to tech behemoths like Nvidia, whose advanced processing units and software are at the center of the AI race and data center growth. \u201cI don\u2019t think people understand that\u2019s the scale we\u2019re talking about. Every large data center we put in can use the entire electric capacity of a city,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is something we need to think about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But lawmakers in neighboring San Jos\u00e9 are taking a different approach from what Park is proposing, leaning into the AI industry\u2019s demand for larger, more energy-intensive data centers even as they try to assuage residents\u2019 concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Homes in the south San Jos\u00e9 neighborhood near the lot intended to house a data center on Silver Creek Valley Road on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

In North San Jos\u00e9\u2019s small Alviso neighborhood, a historically underserved portion of the city that has been heavily developed with tech campuses, corporate offices and research facilities, officials are expecting the buildout of at least three major data centers and large energy-use projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Google is proposing to demolish an existing warehouse and build research and development facilities expected to draw about 250 megawatts of power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor context, 250 MW is larger than the average demand of all of Marin County in 2024, and about half the overall average demand of San Mateo County,\u201d the California Public Utilities Commission said<\/a> in its review of the project.<\/p>\n

Not far away, Microsoft is already building a 99-megawatt data center with 224 natural gas generators to provide continual power when there are outages or the grid is overloaded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And on 159 acres of land used as a buffer between a wastewater facility jointly owned by San Jos\u00e9 and Santa Clara, the city has entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement<\/a> with Prologis, which is proposing a facility that in total would use 496 megawatts of electricity across data centers and research facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Ellina Yin stands outside a pair of buildings in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jos\u00e9 that Google plans to modify to operate similar to a data center on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Based on those power estimates, the group of Alviso facilities at full capacity could use more energy daily than the entire city of Santa Clara<\/a> \u2014 with its dozens of data centers \u2014 currently does, said San Jos\u00e9 resident Ellina Yin, who has tracked data center development closely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re putting an entire city\u2019s worth of data centers in this tiny neighborhood, and the public health implications are unstudied. We don\u2019t really understand what the future impacts could be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A community listening session in San Jos\u00e9 last month turned out hundreds of people, most expressing concern about data centers and some calling for a moratorium on accepting applications from developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahan, a former tech worker, has said in the past that rejecting data center development outright would be akin to burying \u201cour heads in the sand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some residents said they sense a disconnect between what people are telling elected leaders and what policies are being advanced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan takes notes during the city\u2019s first community listening session focused on data centers on Aug. 19, 2026, at City Hall.\u00a0(Joseph Geha\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t seem to care about the fact that a lot of people just really don\u2019t want this in their backyard,\u201d said Ken Thompson, a South San Jos\u00e9 resident who lives steps away from a proposed data center. \u201cIf the community doesn\u2019t want it, if the local area around it doesn\u2019t want it, then why are we forcing it upon them?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahan doesn\u2019t see it that way. Instead, the city has taken a build-the-airplane-while-flying-it approach, holding community meetings to gather feedback that will inform a planned beefing up of regulations and standards<\/a> for data center proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to set, with input from the community over the coming months, some of the highest, strictest standards in every category of concern we\u2019ve heard,\u201d Mahan said in an interview. \u201cLabor standards, environmental protection, rate-payer protection, aesthetics and other community engagement and community benefits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

City officials expect to present the City Council with the new standards by the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is much more important that we regulate Big Tech to get this right than to simply say \u2018no\u2019 and make it somebody else\u2019s problem and lose the ability to shape this investment,\u201d Mahan said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A Notice of Development Proposal is posted outside a building in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jos\u00e9 that Google plans to modify to operate similar to a data center on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, business and industry trade groups representing the biggest tech companies and data center developers say data centers are paramount to the success of the digital economy, Silicon Valley\u2019s continued status as an innovation engine and American dominance in AI technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf California is not positioned to continue rapidly deploying and scaling AI technology \u2026 if our state general fund, if our local community economies are not able to garner the benefits of this, it will go elsewhere,\u201d said Ahmad Thomas, the CEO of Silicon Valley Leadership Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the next 30 to 40 years of economic supremacy globally is going to be determined by who gets this right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Thomas said the data centers proposed in the Silicon Valley region are being developed responsibly, making use of renewable energy, recycled water, and offering community benefits. He said it\u2019s a template all data center development should follow, and might assuage some concerns and fears.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur thesis is that listening to the community leads to better innovation. That has always been our working approach,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A lot on Silver Creek Valley Road in south San Jos\u00e9, which is intended to house a data center, on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Khara Boender, a spokesperson for the western division of the industry trade group Data Center Coalition, said data center backers want to be good neighbors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe industry is committed to paying for its full cost of service for electricity and the underlying infrastructure that it uses,\u201d Boender said. \u201cThe industry is committed to responsible water use, and has made different investments in restoration and replenishment projects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The buildings, which as recently as several years ago were much smaller and drew significantly smaller energy loads, were previously primarily used to house and exchange information across the internet, and later came to support all kinds of daily needs of a modern world, like social media, streaming services and video communication services for meetings and telehealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey support the very fabric of our digital lives and every aspect of that,\u201d said Dr. Andrew Chien, a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But newer data centers are packed with high-energy processing and computing elements that are increasingly used for AI, both to do the complex computational work needed to power AI chatbots and agents, and to train massive AI models and systems that are at the forefront of the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are leaving that to the burden of future generations to deal with, just as when cell phones came, and we didn\u2019t understand social media, and now look at the state of child development and the impact of social media<\/a> on the youth,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She pointed to the collection of Superfund polluted sites across Santa Clara County<\/a>, created by years of toxic material mismanagement in the semiconductor industry<\/a> that flourished there decades ago, or the global plastics industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A lot on Silver Creek Valley Road in south San Jos\u00e9, which is intended to house a data center, on Sept. 3, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know any better. And now it\u2019s in our bodies, it\u2019s in our water, and the plastics industry did not come running to save us and to do all the reparations of correcting the damage that they caused. And so I don\u2019t think I can trust that the AI industry is going to come and do the reparation of the impacts that they\u2019re going to cause,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raicu, the director of the Internet Ethics Center, co-authored a report<\/a> on data centers and water use, and said the overall lack of clear information about the resource consumption of data centers by the companies proposing and operating them is striking, and more disclosure should be required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some reports, like one out of Virginia<\/a>, which has the highest concentration of data centers in the country, say many there use as much water as large office buildings each year, between 4 million gallons and 10 million gallons. But others use far more, including one that uses 243 million gallons. The picture both locally and nationally isn\u2019t always clear or comprehensive, Raicu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how much energy and how much water data centers are using. And the demands are going to be different at the scale that we\u2019re talking about for these new kinds of data centers,\u201d she said, noting that researchers<\/a> have advocated for more detailed information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that it\u2019s been such a multi-year battle in which only now are some companies voluntarily starting to disclose, data center by data center, what\u2019s actually being used, that\u2019s a big reason we\u2019re seeing the pushback and the distrust,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Ted Smith, a San Jos\u00e9 resident, expresses concerns about the impact of data centers during the city\u2019s first community listening session focused on data centers on Aug. 19, 2026, at City Hall.\u00a0(Joseph Geha\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill last year that would have required water use disclosure by data center developers, and has another similar bill on his desk this year<\/a>, along with a raft of other bills aimed at drawing more information from data center proponents and protecting electricity customers from paying higher rates in connection with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thompson, the South San Jos\u00e9 resident, who lives in a small house on a former orchard, said he initially got involved in the push against data centers when he found out one could rise just steps from his home.<\/p>\n

Prologis is proposing a three-story, 99-megawatt data center that would include 44 diesel generators for backup power on Silver Creek Valley Road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thompson said city officials told him current air quality regulations would limit the number of hours per year the center would be allowed to operate the generators, which produce toxic compounds when running during power outages.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if the penalty for [exceeding] that is a fine, then I have a sneaking suspicion that that\u2019s not going to stop them \u2026 because the money that they make is going to be more than the fine,\u201d Thompson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raicu thinks holistic conversations about how data centers are built, where they make sense and how they affect society need to be top priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this is just a force of nature. These are decisions made by human beings. Regulations can be passed. There can be a lot more money spent on making more sustainable technology. There could be delays put in place as to whether you deploy something at this kind of scale,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of that is just human decisions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

KQED Correspondent Guy Marzorati<\/a> contributed to this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Clara has quietly become California\u2019s data center capital. The sleepy suburb known for its quiet streets and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-463285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}