With community opposition growing, data center backers are going on a full-scale public relations blitz. Around Christmas in Virginia, which boasts the highest concentration of data centers in the country, one advertisement seemed to air nonstop. “Virginia’s data centers are … investing billions in clean energy,” a voiceover intoned over sweeping shots of shiny solar panels. “Creating good-paying jobs” — cue men in yellow safety vests and hard hats — “and building a better energy future.”
The ad was sponsored by Virginia Connects, an industry-affiliated group that spent at least $700,000 on digital marketing in the state in fiscal year 2024. The spot emphasized that data centers are paying their own energy costs — framing this as a buffer that might help lower residential bills — and portrayed the facilities as engines of local job creation.
The reality is murkier. Although industry groups claim that each new data center creates “dozens to hundreds” of “high-wage, high-skill jobs,” some researchers say data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries, such as manufacturing and warehousing. Greg LeRoy, the founder of the research and advocacy group Good Jobs First, said that in his first major study of data center jobs nine years ago, he found that developers pocketed well over a million dollars in state subsidies for every permanent job they created. With the rise of hyperscalers, LeRoy said, that number is “still very much in the ballpark.”
Other experts reflect that finding. A 2025 brief from University of Michigan researchers put it bluntly: “Data centers do not bring high-paying tech jobs to local communities.” A recent analysis from Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit tracking corporate overreach, found that in Virginia, the investment required to create a permanent data center job was nearly 100 times higher than what was required to create comparable jobs in other industries.
“Data centers are the extreme of hyper-capital intensity in manufacturing,” LeRoy said. “Once they’re built, the number of people monitoring them is really small.” Contractors may be called in if something breaks, and equipment is replaced every few years. “But that’s not permanent labor,” he said.
Jon Hukill, a spokesperson for the Data Center Coalition, the industry lobbying group that established Virginia Connects in 2024, said that the industry “is committed to paying its full cost of service for the energy it uses” and is trying to “meet this moment in a way that supports both data center development and an affordable, reliable electricity grid for all customers.” Nationally, Hukill said, the industry “supported 4.7 million jobs and contributed $162 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2023.”
Dozens of community groups across the country have mobilized against data center buildout, citing fears that the facilities will drain water supplies, overwhelm electric grids, and pollute the air around them. According to Data Center Watch, a project run by AI security company 10a Labs, nearly 200 community groups are currently active and blocked or delayed 20 data center projects representing $98 billion of potential investment between April and June 2025 alone.