Aug 27, 2026 - News
What Pittsburghers are saying about data centers
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
We asked our readers what they thought of data centers, and the message was loud and clear: you don't want them.
Zoom in: Two dozen people voiced their disapproval in response to an Axios Pittsburgh social media post, bringing up concerns about water consumption and contamination, increased utility costs, more natural gas production, and AI's effect on creative fields.
- Two people were concerned data centers would lower their property values, and one suburban Pittsburgher said they were planning to move because a data center was being proposed a mile from their home.
- Nancy H. told Axios people should focus on data centers purely built to power AI, not all data centers — which have been around for years. "Personally I hate the AI slop I am seeing oozing over social media and that crap saddens me," she said.
The fine print: Data centers have housed servers for businesses for decades, but hyperscale data centers are much larger, built to rapidly expand computing capacity for cloud services and AI.
- A conventional data center may use up to 25 megawatts of power, but some proposed hyperscale campuses could exceed 5,000 megawatts and thousands of acres — enough to power most of Manhattan, per the International Energy Agency.
- Data Center Map counts 174 data centers across Pennsylvania, including 44 in Pittsburgh — many tucked into familiar places like Nova Place and operating largely unnoticed for years.
- To meet AI demand, developers are increasingly eyeing sites near existing power plants or proposing new generation that could also feed the grid, like in Homer City.