DAVID MARCUS: What big tech’s weekend from hell means for the future of data centers

The last several days have not been good for big tech. On Thursday, Microsoft Outlook, which handles most of the business email in America, suddenly shut down. Then, on Friday, the FAA grounded every flight in the country, apparently because of technical upgrades that went wrong.

These fiber-optic faceplants happen to come at a moment when much of the country, mostly at the local level, is seeing fierce opposition to data centers, not only because of environmental concerns and energy prices but also because of real concerns that tech is becoming too big a part of our lives.

In Maryland, the story of Taylor Frazier-McCollum, a community activist who helped block a $5 billion data center project planned for the site of an abandoned mall, went viral, with the left praising the power and bravery of the individual and the right mocking her alternative idea for the site: a trampoline park.

Protestors hold up ‘Stop data centers’ signs, on the day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech at the General Motors Proving Ground, in Milford, Michigan, U.S. July 27, 2026. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)

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In fairness, this Maryland activist does not come across as particularly adroit or searing in her insights. On the other hand, like many Americans, she understands implicitly the advantages a trampoline park or a Topgolf location can bring to her community. The benefits of a data center seem murky by comparison.

This kind of attitude toward data centers has many very smart people pulling their hair out in frustration. For them, the economic and technological benefits, including beating China in the AI race, obviously far outweigh the concerns of nonexperts like Frazier-McCollum.

In fact, many proponents of data centers argue that China is funding propaganda to slow our growth in the sector, even as data centers start popping up all over China like umbrella salesmen in a Manhattan rainstorm.

This is true. China, the Eddie Haskell of the planet, is absolutely “giving us the business” by stoking anti-data center fervor. But it is important to remember that data centers aren’t controversial because of Chinese information operations; rather, Chinese information operations exist because data centers are controversial.

An Amazon Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Virginia, US, on Sunday, July 28, 2024. Data center developers in Northern Virginia are asking utility Dominion Energy Inc. for as much power as several nuclear reactors can generate, in the latest sign of how artificial intelligence is helping drive up electricity demand. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Up until about six months ago, data centers were not a major national news story. In fact, the place one was most likely to hear about them was local talk radio in small towns across rural America, where many people care more about who the county commissioner is than who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The concerns you hear from callers on these shows sound downright mundane compared to the fervent calls from experts to win the new space race against China and unleash the power of AI. But for many who live there, water rights and easements mean more than geopolitical fisticuffs.

This is why, in a strange way, this week’s tech mishaps, which inconvenienced millions of Americans at work and at airports, present an opportunity for the tech industry to explain in more practical terms why we need so many data centers.

Implicit in the pro-data center argument has been the idea, often offered with a bit of disdain, that it is absurd to oppose data centers by posting about them on devices that cannot operate without data centers. And OK, point taken, but the snark doesn’t help.

Planes wait on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport, New York on November 13, 2026. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a ground stop at all US airports due to communications problem. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP via Getty Images) ( )

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In fact, Democrats, one could say cynically, capitalized on the anger many Americans felt at being talked down to by the big tech set, using it to great electoral advantage, especially in traditionally right-leaning rural areas. But Democrats, no matter who leads them, cannot maintain their blanket disapproval of data centers for long, as this weekend showed.

It was safe enough to call for data center moratoriums in the races of 2026, but as they seek to govern, Democrats will need data centers. Let’s face it, nobody is going back to typewriters and fax machines, and nobody wants to sit in seat 24B for five hours on the tarmac at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.

Demonstrators from the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition protest against AI and data centers as a police officer looks on during the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 2, 2026. (Matt Ramey/AFP via Getty Images)

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At the local level, much of the data center fuss is already working itself out through the sausage-making of politics and the courts. Some communities, like the Amish, will eschew the infrastructure projects completely and lose out on the pot of gold. But most will find a happy compromise once enough concessions are pried from developers.

For now, proponents of data centers would be wise to point to events like the Outlook outage and the flight groundings, without sneering, as the very reason we need so many data centers to power the conveniences we have all grown accustomed to.

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With the midterms behind us and our tech infrastructure on thin ice, now is the time for the case to be made that, one way or another, our future lies in data centers.