US Data Center Pipeline Set for Sevenfold Power Surge as Bipartisan Backlash and a New Jersey Permit Fight Escalate

America's data center buildout has gotten so big that the industry is effectively planning a second national grid, built just to feed AI.

According to Cleanview, a market intelligence firm founded by Michael Thomas, the US currently runs 1,298 operational data centers with a combined 61,560 megawatts of capacity. The company is tracking 2,142 additional planned projects that would add 380,312 megawatts on top of that, a roughly sevenfold increase in total capacity, according to Crypto Briefing's review of Cleanview's data.

Texas is set to grab the biggest share, projected to capture between 75 and 100 gigawatts of that planned capacity. Virginia and Utah are also drawing major projects, though neither comes close to Texas's scale, Crypto Briefing reported.

Not everyone believes it all gets built. Axios, using its own review of Cleanview's building-level tracking, counted roughly 3,000 individual data center buildings and cautioned plainly: "It's unlikely the more than 3,000 data centers on Cleanview's list will come to fruition." Cleanview counts individual buildings rather than campuses in that dataset, which explains why Axios's baseline figure (13,200 MW current capacity, 250 planned buildings) differs from the campus-level numbers Crypto Briefing cited. Both outlets, along with Cleanview's own newsletter, flag permitting delays as the biggest wildcard standing between announced projects and operating power plants.

Skipping the grid entirely. A growing number of developers aren't waiting on utilities at all. Cleanview has identified 59 data center projects building their own on-site power, mostly natural gas turbines, adding up to about 90 gigawatts of capacity. Ninety-two percent of those announcements, representing roughly 82 gigawatts, have come since early 2025, Crypto Briefing reported. xAI's Colossus campus near Memphis, Tennessee, has deployed about 1.5 gigawatts of mobile gas turbines, and Cleanview's newsletter reports the company plans 10 to 20 gigawatts of off-grid capacity overall, according to Michael Thomas's remarks on the Inevitable podcast.

A permit-free power plant in New Jersey. That off-grid trend just produced a genuine enforcement problem. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection confirmed it issued no permits for any power generators at the DataOne Campus in Vineland, according to Latitude Media. Investigative outlet Floodlight reported that 45 of the site's 62 gas generators appeared to be running anyway, with no permit applications even pending at the time.

Bruce Buckheit, a former chief of air enforcement at the EPA, told Floodlight the situation appears to violate federal law and that DataOne should halt the generators and face financial penalties. Neither DataOne nor Nebius, the Dutch AI infrastructure firm that signed a $17 billion agreement to supply Microsoft with computing capacity from the site, has publicly responded to the specific allegations, according to Floodlight's reporting.

The Vineland site sits about 40 miles from Philadelphia and roughly a mile from two schools. Neighbors Andrew and Stevi Groetsch told Floodlight the generator noise has disrupted their family's sleep and daily life, describing it as constant.

Voters are souring on all of it, in both parties. More than $31 million has been spent on political ads mentioning data centers this year, spiking last month to more than 8% of all broadcast campaign spending on data center or AI-related spots, up from less than 1% a year earlier, according to AdImpact data cited by CNN. Over 99% of that spending attacked data center projects. Candidates in Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, and California have all built ad campaigns around opposing local projects, CNN found.

"Data centers have picked up a unique bipartisan opposition in large part because they are so local as an issue," Daniel King, a research fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, told CNN. Clifford Young of Ipsos Public Affairs added that the issue "plays into this underlying belief that the system is broken."

A September Epoch Times survey of 1,505 readers found the same tension. Fifty-five percent said the US should accelerate data center construction to compete with China in AI, a reasonable position given the stakes of that race. But 47% said they wouldn't want a large data center in their own community, versus 38% who would. More than 95% agreed data centers should pay the full cost of their own power infrastructure rather than pass it to households, and 88% supported limiting construction where it threatens grid reliability. Sixty-nine percent wanted states to end special tax breaks for data centers, and 94% said a developer's identity, incentives, and resource use should be disclosed before any approval vote.

That last number cuts to the fight ahead. Most Americans aren't against AI infrastructure outright. They're against getting stuck paying for it, breathing it, or losing sleep to it without a say. Whether the Vineland enforcement case ends in fines, a shutdown order, or nothing at all will say a lot about whether that disclosure demand gets backed by actual regulatory teeth.