A global study said that the data center industry may grow up to 30 percent every year thanks to AI, but it also identified a major hurdle: local communities that do not want this infrastructure in their neighborhood.
NTT Data, an IT service provider for three-fourths of the Fortune Global 100, commissioned consultancy firm ThoughtLab to execute a study that mapped out how the global center industry would grow because of AI up to 2030.
It identified three scenarios, with each seeing the data center industry grow annually, but at different paces: 16 percent if it’s “slow;” 23 percent if the growth is “steady;” and 30 percent if it’s “accelerated.”
The study concluded that the most likely pace of growth would be steady or accelerated, but there would be headwinds regardless, first among them being the public backlash against the industry, which is making it difficult to get land even if it’s “suitable” for data centers.
Although regulatory barriers and equipment bottlenecks were also identified as headwinds, neither of them was bad enough to cancel ongoing or proposed projects.
“Local resistance is climbing across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America, driven by concerns over noise, traffic, and energy and water consumption,” the study read. “Over the last two years, over $60 billion of data center projects have been cancelled or delayed.”
“This backlash is lengthening and complicating planning processes, eroding the regulatory goodwill the industry depends on,” the study said.
In the U.S. alone, such public sentiment had led to a growing number of cancelled projects, the study said: 2 in 2023, 6 in 2024, and 25 in 2025 (21 of which happened at the latter half of the year).
This was also a problem in Europe, the study said, which “encountered strong local opposition and permitting challenges, leading to cancellations or delays for several gigawatts of planned capacity across multiple large projects.”
“Local opposition and land-use conflicts are emerging in places such as Japan, Singapore and constrained areas of Australia and India. But the backlash has not yet reached the intensity seen in the U.S. or Europe,” it said.
Data centers power AI, and AI now powers many of the digital technologies across industries, including fashion and retail, which uses AI from backend operations to consumer facing ones. An example is how AI is being used for predictive procurement; large datasets, minimum order quantities, geographic logistics and supplier certifications are tracked and consolidated with ease, allowing for speedier decision-making when disruptions in the supply chain occur. AI is also being used to track ESG compliance.
However, there are downsides. Data centers require significant resources to operate, from electricity and rare earth minerals.
With public support ebbing, the study said the industry needs “better messaging.” If data center providers could highlight how the tax revenues from data centers could fund local priorities “such as schools, parks, or transit,” then there might be less opposition, the study said.
