AI Hyperscale Data Centers

Hyperscale AI data centers are not ordinary commercial buildings. These sprawling, largely windowless industrial complexes can consume extraordinary amounts of electricity and water while burdening surrounding communities with noise, massive utility infrastructure, environmental risks, and relatively few permanent jobs.

• Infrastructure for mass surveillance: These facilities provide the immense storage and computing power needed to compile, retain, analyze, and cross-reference detailed digital records on virtually every citizen, expanding the capacity of corporations and governments to track individuals on an unprecedented scale.
• Enormous demand on electricity: A single hyperscale data center can consume as much power as tens of thousands of homes, placing additional strain on generation and transmission infrastructure.
• Threats to Florida’s water supply: Many facilities require substantial amounts of water for cooling, competing with residents, agriculture, and the environment for an already limited resource.
• Industrial noise and land-use conflicts: Cooling systems, backup generators, substations, and round-the-clock operations can affect nearby homes and permanently alter surrounding communities.
• Costs and risks for taxpayers and ratepayers: Special incentives, infrastructure expansion, and abandoned utility investments can leave the public carrying costs created for some of the world’s wealthiest corporations.
• Few lasting jobs for the burden imposed: These enormous, highly automated facilities generally require far fewer permanent employees than their size and resource consumption would suggest.

Florida law preserves Lee County’s authority to regulate, restrict, or reject these projects. The Lee County Republican Assembly therefore calls upon the Lee County Board of County Commissioners to prohibit hyperscale AI data centers before one is proposed, approved, and presented to the public as a “done deal.”