Trade unions support IT data centers which will provide high-paying jobs for the Steamfitters (HVAC) and electricians’ union members, among others. They are willing to support politicians on this bread-and-butter issue.
Meanwhile, the public is pushing back hard against data centers due to increased electricity costs. Politicians are already responding to this pressure by placing moratoriums on data center building.
This puts politicians in the middle, especially because the data centers are expected to pay taxes to support local government budgets.
This is going to develop locally since each situation is different.
Farm work has brought newcomers to the town for decades – predominantly from Mexico. But more recently, it has been contractors, construction workers and tech employees filling Bucio’s tables and sharing stories. Data centers have popped up in and around Quincy to handle the digital storage needs of companies like Microsoft and Yahoo…
The majority of the population worked in agriculture – often for six months out of the year. The city’s population has grown to 8,200 residents and boasts a new public library, police station, the Quincy Medical Center, Grant County District 3 Fire Station, an EMS station and a new high school, as well as new houses on the edges of town…
When the data centers first arrived, the city’s budget was tight, according to Quincy interim City Administrator Greg Meinzer. But the sharp increase in tax revenue from data centers helped to improve the city’s finances. In 2018, for example, Quincy collected $9.8 million in tax revenue. In 2024, it collected $20 million, audit reports show. Today, data centers pay 57% of all the taxes collected in Quincy, Ybarra said…
The data centers only use between 4% and 5% of the city’s water, Meinzer said. By using closed-loop cooling technology, data centers can recirculate water, which minimizes water consumption. H5 Quincy Data Center Facility Manager Tony Welsh said their facilities also use “free cooling” by letting cold outside temperatures in the winter assist in cooling the center. Less water is used when temperatures are colder both in summer and winter, he said.
It might be more local than you think. The hyperscalers are increasing using modular construction techniques, fabricating components off-site. This is typically being done in parts of the country not experiencing the data center construction boom because there is skilled labor available. Labor agreements between the unions and construction companies for data center construction mean that the pre-fab is usually being completed using union labor.