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Michelle Weaver warns that community resistance is becoming a material development risk for U.S. data center expansion.

Michelle Weaver, a strategist at Morgan Stanley, warned that capital alone is no longer sufficient to clear a site for new data centers in the United States. While the U.S. and China compete for AI dominance, American developers face increasing political backlash from local communities regarding power bills, water supplies, and noise. Unlike China, where the government can build infrastructure with limited friction, American developers must navigate a thousand local decisions that federal policy cannot reach. Morgan Stanley projects a 38-gigawatt power shortfall between 2026 and 2028. To address this, the bank suggests rapid deployment of natural-gas turbines and nuclear plant colocation. The bank notes that opposition scales non-linearly with size, suggesting that smaller colocation operators may face softer political pushback than gigawatt-scale AI campuses. Developers are advised to monitor local municipal agendas and zoning hearings early, as these are often the first signs of which projects will face the most significant hurdles.

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