MiningStore

insane sequence of statements buried in an Alibaba tech report

In 2025, 25 data center projects were canceled due to community pushback. That’s up from just 6 in 2024 and 2 in 2023. The opposition is notably bipartisan, driven overwhelmingly by one thing: rising electricity prices for local residents. In Q2 2025 alone, 20 projects were blocked or delayed, putting $98B in potential investment at risk. The 2025 cancellations represented ~4.7 gigawatts of lost electricity capacity. Using OpenAI’s own estimate of revenue per gigawatt (~$10B revenue per gigawatt), those cancellations represent ~$50B in lost AI revenue in a single year. Applying a 20x earnings multiple and its $1 trillion in lost enterprise value. In one year! And it’s not getting better… At least 99 data center projects are currently being contested nationwide. Historically, ~40% of projects facing sustained opposition are eventually canceled. This means many more gigawatts, billions in revenues and trillions in enterprise value are at risk if we don’t turn this around. The core problem as I see it: local residents are being asked to subsidize AI infrastructure through higher electricity bills with no upside. That’s not a sustainable ask. Until we solve the electricity cost equation, community opposition will remain a systemic and under-priced risk to the AI sector and the broader economy.