America doesn’t need a simple yes-or-no debate over data centers. It needs a better civic compact to honestly weigh their benefits and costs.
Data centers are a rapidly growing and essential part of the country’s basic infrastructure. A country that wants to lead in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital innovation cannot treat large-scale computing capacity as optional.
But communities shouldn’t confuse national importance with automatic local benefit. The right question isn’t whether data centers should be built but on what terms states and communities should welcome them.
