On June 8, Charlotte City Council voted unanimously to pass a 150-day moratorium on new data centers, a first step in halting the expansion of these environmentally destructive projects. Charlotte is now the largest U.S. city among a growing list—from New Orleans to Denver—to enact a data center moratorium.
This victory was only possible due to a mass community movement. Over 6,000 people signed a petition against a proposed data center in East Charlotte, a residential neighborhood home to many immigrant families. Residents packed meeting after meeting to demand restrictions on data centers and pressure our elected officials to act. Community members and PSL organizers knocked hundreds of doors in East Charlotte to spread the word. The community’s collective action showed that when we organize together, we can win!
What’s Next After a Moratorium?
A data center moratorium sends a powerful message to greedy developers who want to profit at the expense of our health, electricity, and water that our communities are not for sale. But we can’t stop here! A moratorium is only temporary, and it does not halt projects that were already approved, such as a hyperscale data center in West Charlotte that threatens the Catawba River, a vital water source that millions rely on.
This fight is especially urgent as North Carolina faces one of its worst droughts in decades and the private monopoly Duke Energy seeks to raise electricity rates by nearly 20% to build more data centers. A temporary pause is not enough—we need a statewide ban on data center construction, like was recently passed by the New York State Legislature. The moratorium is an important win, but it is only the beginning. We must continue building a mass movement to win lasting protections and meaningful community control over data center development.
To Fight Data Centers, We Must Fight Capitalism!
At the same time, it’s not enough to just fight against data centers as an isolated issue. The relentless drive to build more data centers is fundamentally a symptom of a capitalist system which seeks to make as much profit at any cost.
Tech giants are spending billions of dollars to gain a competitive edge in the AI arms race, spurring a frantic scramble to build more data centers. Instead of being guided by a rational plan to allocate society’s finite resources and protect the planet, corporations are driven by their own narrow minded interests to capitalize on the “boom”.
This anarchic system of competition also produces a tremendous waste, with far more data centers being built than are actually necessary. According to a 2026 report from Stanford University, the U.S. has 5,427 AI data centers, over 10 times that of other countries like China (449 data centers). The U.S. contributes to 45% of the entire world’s data center electric use, nearly twice China’s consumption (25%). And we are told we need to continue building even more data centers!
To truly stop this, we need to take the power back from the billionaires who are destroying our planet. A socialist system would put the working class in control over AI and data centers, and we can democratically decide how these technologies are used. If workers had the power, we could plan our economy and communities to meet the needs of the people and the planet—not the interest of Big Tech.
Join us in the fight against endless data center expansion, and for a socialist system!
