The earthly limits of data centre resistance

What started out as a laughable idea – deploying data centres in space – is apparently a less ludicrous proposition these days. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are both pursuing the development of technology for orbital data centres through their companies SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, funneling considerable resources into what many consider to be a speculative endeavor akin to science fiction. Google, too, has launched its Project Suncatcher with similar goals. These ventures seek to capitalise on the perceived limitlessness of the heavens to drive increasingly zealous AI ambitions. A frenzy for space What is it about space that is so attractive to AI companies and their data infrastructure needs? Potential marketing and AI boosterism aside, visions of low-earth orbit compute are driven by the hope to escape the terrestrial constraints facing data centre development. For one, the prospect of free and unlimited solar power is a huge draw, particularly as the energy requirements of data centres rightly continue to raise concerns . In its January 2026 filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, SpaceX emphasised the “transformative” potential of “directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance cost”. It also stressed the environmental advantages of these satellites over terrestrial sites. The passive cooling that space provides is likewise appealing given how much heat is generated by data centres, though experts argue that it would be difficult for heat to dissipate in a vacuum like space . Developers argue moreover that the apparent abundance of orbital space means that the physical constraints of terrestrial builds are no longer of concern. This belief skirts emergent challenges around real limitations on how many objects can actually fit within the bounds of low-earth orbit given the increased likelihood of collisions, and the new forms of interference posed by orbital data centres. More pertinently perhaps, space-based data centres might have the escape velocity to evade the local politics that attend construction projects and the growing resistance to data centres here on Earth. Could space be the next frontier for data centre development? While we ( and other experts ) have serious doubts about the technical and economic feasibility of these plans, the prospect raises hard questions about the possibilities for social organising and resistance to off-earth AI infrastructure projects. Regardless of how Big Tech dreams of space data centres end, the prospect should generate greater scrutiny of what precisely resistance movements are trying to target. Not in anyone’s backyard Tech companies are facing some of their strongest headwinds yet as collective, broad-based resistance to data centres has begun to gain traction globally. In the U.S, research group Data centre Watch has mapped $156 bn of blocked or stalled investments across 48 projects as a result of coordinated local opposition in 2025. This public pushback is translating into a new wave of political and legal opposition including a proposed federal moratorium advanced by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the potential elimination of lucrative tax breaks in Virginia (the data centre capital of the world), and restrictions on permitting across the country. Outside the U.S., similar social movements have emerged in Chile , Ireland , and Mexico to contest the energy and environmental impacts of these projects. Across Europe, the European Union and national governments are finding that their visions of data-centre driven economic vitality are clashing with local community preferences . For the U.S, the collective and often community-based objection to data centres contrasts sharply with a growing mood of political apathy and, in some cases, enmity. What marks these efforts as especially unusual is their frequently cross-cutting nature – an expression of shared democratic will that some argue is rooted in the material nature of data centres . Unlike less tangible forms of digital incursion ( surveillance , facial recognition , digital identity , age verification , and the like), data centres have palpable impacts that communities directly experience: rising utility bills, negative impacts on property values, and the noxious effects of air, noise, and water pollution. Meanwhile promises of a job boom have failed to manifest, leaving little to show for the material fallout of centre operations. This visceral experience has made the calculus of the generative AI boom concrete. Though not all of this resistance can be read through the lens of AI skepticism, anti-AI sentiment is growing. Community refusal is beginning to extend beyond the proximate impacts of data centre development, and towards a consideration of the applications they power. Communities are starting to connect their local data centres to the sprawling ecosystems that these tools are embedded within. When Ypsilanti Township in Michigan says no to hosting a data centre that will power nuclear research at Los Alamos, they are spurning more than just the bad economic or environmental deal being offered, they are also surfacing moral, ethical, – and even existential – concerns. These concerns do not evaporate once data centres are moved to space , arguably the relationalities of power entangled with data centres extend beyond terrestrial boundaries – bound up in anticipatory visions of inevitable terrestrial ruin , space colonisation , and the capitalisation of space . Policy and polity: what’s next for data centre resistance? Can these social justice efforts then be sustained when the energy needs of space-based data centres no longer hurt our utility bills in the same way as their terrestrial counterparts? Will earthly publics become indifferent to infrastructural politics once data centres are put into orbit? The apparent disappearance of the local poses pressing questions of the social organising behind ongoing resistance campaigns. And resistance movements need to find answers: the desire for space-based data centres is evocative of a wider shift in power – one that relocates agency away from people and towards Big Tech. Policymakers can and should do more to promote civil society’s critical engagement with data centre developments and the politics they engender. At a minimum, local, national and regional bodies must be transparent about, and publicly disclose details of data centre harm , lobbying, and negotiations . Taxes and moratoriums also offer some possible policy levers to realign data centre development with the public good. However, they are insufficiently equipped to confront the patterns of development that have rendered communities underdeveloped and vulnerable to becoming sacrifice zones for AI infrastructure. As wide-ranging frustration, anger, and resentment finds a home in data centre resistance, the movement is swiftly becoming talismanic of a much broader swathe of social, political, and economic grievances. AI anxiety — and its more confrontational cousin anti-AI populism — embody this growing maelstrom, resulting in a movement policymakers are ill-prepared to deal with . But deal with it they must, because their regulatory ability is bound up in precisely the same terrestrial limitations that confine popular data centre resistance. It’s the political economy, stupid Data centre resistance, then, is about more than just policy. As Big Tech strategies morph and data centres metastasize, a wider public project of conscientisation about the socio-political project of AI is required. Data centres are one – albeit highly critical – node of contemporary infrastructures of political dominance. In order to properly address concerns policymakers will need to directly confront the political economy of AI capitalism . Whether or not data centres make it to space, the possibility itself exposes the limitations of resistance hinged only on proximate material experience. A wider and deeper movement is needed to ensure that local rebuff of data centres does not merely transfer harm to communities less equipped to protest. In the emerging resistance to data centres, digital rights, privacy, environmental, labor, and civil society advocates have a rare window of opportunity. The current moment gives vital impetus to the possibilities for a critical consciousness to take root and ensure that, if need be, mobilisation from below can reach the heights of orbit.