Data centers: The public process is critical in Florida

BY BRENT MCCONNELL

Data centers are becoming one of the strangest political fights in America. Most of us use them every day without knowing where they are or what they do. They store our photographs and financial records, stream our movies, run much of the internet and provide the computing power required for artificial intelligence. If you use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, you need a data center. Yet communities across the country are fighting to keep them out.

A “not in my backyard” mentality does not make a data center disappear; it puts it in someone else’s backyard. There can, however, be more transparency in how sites are selected and how communities benefit. Someone is making significant money; citizens should not have to subsidize that profit.

Florida is not starting from zero. As of early 2026, the state had about 120 operating data centers and several more planned, ranking 12th nationally. Across the largest North American markets, data-center capacity grew 34 percent in 2024, while the amount under construction was roughly 12 times greater than in 2020. Much of that growth is driven by artificial intelligence requirements.

That fight has reached Southwest Florida. In June, Charlotte County commissioners held a workshop to discuss whether data centers should be permitted, and what restrictions should apply. There was no proposed data center, developer seeking approval or site under consideration. Officials were trying to make the rules before someone came knocking.

In Lee County, construction in Bonita Springs generated concern when approval documents repeatedly referred to a “data center.” Residents questioned what was being built. City officials explained that it was an internet relay facility, not the enormous AI data center many imagined.

The words “data center” alone have become enough to cause alarm, and there are valid reasons for that concern.

The largest modern data centers can cost billions of dollars, cover hundreds of acres and consume enormous amounts of electricity. Some use significant water for cooling. They may require new substations, transmission lines and generating capacity, potentially increasing costs for residents. They create considerable employment during construction but, once operating, may employ relatively few people compared with similar industrial developments.

For Southwest Florida, those are not trivial issues. We already argue about development, water supplies, electric bills and disappearing open land. If a company wants to build a billion-dollar facility in Charlotte or Lee County, residents have every right to ask how much electricity and water it will consume, what infrastructure it requires, who will pay for it and how many permanent jobs will remain.

Florida also provides significant tax advantages to qualifying data centers. If companies worth hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars want tax concessions, what does the community receive in return? Should residents be required to subsidize owner profits?

Suspicion grows when billion-dollar projects are negotiated through processes the public does not understand. Around the country, developers have been accused of receiving favorable treatment from politicians and local officials, including allegations of improper relationships and bribery. When extraordinary sums are involved, transparency becomes more important, not less.

All of this makes a strong case for regulating data centers carefully, but not for stopping them. AI does not exist somewhere in the air. It runs on computers housed in buildings using enormous amounts of electricity. Countries with the greatest computing capacity will have an advantage in developing the next generation of AI, far beyond ChatGPT and Claude.

AI is increasingly used to develop medicines, design weapons, conduct intelligence analysis, discover new materials, defend computer networks, improve manufacturing and perform scientific research. A country that falls behind in computing capacity risks falling behind in many of those areas. Industrial capacity mattered during the twentieth century. Semiconductor manufacturing later became strategically important. Computing capacity will become another form of national power. If Americans prevent data centers from being built here, we will not stop using artificial intelligence. Someone else will build the computers and own an industry already transforming modern life.

China understands the competition. OpenAI reported this year that it shut down accounts likely originating in China that were generating social-media messages opposing American data-center construction. The operators asked the system to produce messages appearing to come from ordinary Americans, including claims that data centers were driving up electricity prices. That is worth noticing. A foreign actor apparently concluded that slowing American computing infrastructure was in its interest.

What should we do in Charlotte and Lee counties?

First, every proposed large data center should come with a public accounting before approval: expected electricity and water consumption, infrastructure requirements, tax incentives, permanent jobs and who pays for utility improvements. Residents should not need an engineering degree or public-records request to understand the deal.

Second, the political process should be equally transparent. Meetings with developers, financial incentives, development agreements and potential financial conflicts involving public officials should be disclosed. 

Charlotte County is in an unusual position. They are discussing the rules before they have a project. That gives them an opportunity many communities did not have, and they should use it.

We cannot demand that America remain ahead of China in artificial intelligence while refusing to build the infrastructure that makes that leadership possible. The difficult question for Florida is not whether data centers are good or bad. It is how to build the ones we need without making local residents pay a price to which they never agreed. 

McConnell of Cape Haze is a former Pentagon lead for weapons security. Email AITechThoughts@gmail.com