If you happen to be driving through Altoona, Iowa, anytime soon, you’ll probably take Interstate 80. If you do, you’ll spot the Altoona water tower and the roller-coaster peaks of Adventureland theme park, empty in the off-season. You’ll also likely notice, just off the highway, a hulking, windowless warehouse complex stretching hundreds of acres. That’s Meta’s Altoona Data Center, now the subject of a $5 million industry advertising campaign.
As a reporter for Grist, I spend a lot of time thinking about data centers, which are proliferating to enable Silicon Valley’s AI frenzy. More and more Americans are thinking about them, too, and many folks aren’t so sure they want the facilities in their neighborhoods. They’re worried about air and noise pollution, and that developers may be less than entirely honest about how many jobs the facilities will bring.
Big Tech knows its data centers have a PR problem, so now it is spending millions in the hope of convincing people the centers are job creators, responsible ratepayers, and generally a boon to American communities.
Sounds nice, but these claims may not stand up to scrutiny. As Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First told me, research suggests that tech data centers create vanishingly few jobs relative to comparable community investments by other industries. (In Altoona, the local casino employs more than twice as many people as Meta’s facility does.) Meanwhile, public backlash is growing, ads or no ads: From April through June of 2025, community groups blocked or delayed at least 20 data center projects, representing an estimated $98 billion of potential investment.
Will the industry’s rosy ad campaign move the masses? Virginia activist Elena Schlossberg is doubtful. As she put it, “There’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.” Read my story and decide for yourself.
—Sophie Hurwitz
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