Large-load tariffs and other measures to weed out speculative projects are taking shape amid public backlash to data centers and shifting state-level policies.

“A fraction of proposed data centers will get built. Utilities are wising up.”

That was the headline on a May 2025 Utility Dive article that explored the conundrum speculative data center requests pose for U.S. electric utilities. More than a year later, it’s unclear how much has changed.

Community opposition has emerged as a major barrier to data center development, with other challenges including construction labor shortages, long lead times for critical electrical equipment, limited power availability in key markets and uncertainty around consumer demand for artificial intelligence tools.

More than $170 billion in AI data center capacity has been “blocked, withdrawn, or stalled” by community opposition since January 2024, the energy advisory company Relae, formerly Carbon Direct, said in June.

That’s a sizable chunk of the roughly $581 billion Goldman Sachs expects the big tech companies known as hyperscalers to spend in the U.S. on AI infrastructure, including data center construction, this year.

Yet market analysts see no sign that the AI-driven construction boom will disappear anytime soon, despite challenges.

Goldman Sachs said in May it sees U.S. data center power demand more than doubling from its 2025 levels to reach 66 GW in 2027. Only about half of data center capacity scheduled for the next one to two years is expected to come online on time amid delays and cancellations, it said.

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