New Jersey city spurns data center as defiance spreads
ByAFP
PublishedApril 10, 2026
Amzak Capital Management had planned to build its data center complex on the site of a former automotive plant - Copyright AFP Thomas URBAIN
Thomas URBAIN
Residents of a New Jersey city mobilized within days to kill a planned data center — and now activists nationwide want to know how they did it.
Grassroots resistance to these computing fortresses is spreading across the United States, even as Big Tech pours hundreds of billions of dollars a year into AI infrastructure, pushing new projects into communities from coast to coast.
Forty miles (65 kilometers) from the New York skyline, rubble still litters a vacant lot in New Brunswick — bordered by a railway line on one side and homes on the other.
This former automotive plant was where Amzak Capital Management had planned to build its complex. For now, it remains empty — a trophy, activists say, for a community that fought back.
Residents learned of the project just nine days before a scheduled city council vote in mid-February.
They moved fast. A video went viral; flyers spread across the city, notably on the nearby campus of Rutgers University. More than 300 people showed up to proceedings held in a room with a seating capacity of barely 80.
Before the matter was even opened for public comment, the city council announced the data center component was being stripped from the redevelopment plan, recalled Ben Dziobek, founder of environmental advocacy group Climate Revolution Action Network.
“We’ve got tons of people reaching out to us from around the country asking us how we did it,” said Charlie Kratovil, a Democratic mayoral candidate and member of environmental group Food & Water Action.
“It is definitely tapping into something that is bigger than any one of us.”
New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill told AFP that while data centers have become critical to modern economies, “communities across the country are grappling with how to integrate them locally.”
Key considerations, he said, include energy consumption, environmental impact, real estate footprint and benefit to local residents.
Those concerns resonated deeply in New Brunswick.
A 23-year-old resident who asked to be identified by the initials CJ noted that the data center would have been built in the middle of a working-class neighborhood, far from the businesses, hospitals, and university buildings of the more affluent city center.
For Brandon Guillebeaux, a longtime resident of this heavily Hispanic community, the trade-offs simply didn’t add up.
“If it had brought thousands of jobs, it would have been worth it,” he said. “But this was only going to be a few.” Once operational, data centers typically employ very few workers on site.
– A precedent? –
A boom in generative AI has sent data center demand skyrocketing, with dozens of projects springing up across the United States.
The buildout comes at a cost: power-hungry facilities are straining local grids and driving up electricity bills, contributing to a nearly 17 percent jump in the average New Jersey household’s energy costs last year.
Public sentiment is hardening. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 65 percent of Americans oppose having a data center built in their community.
In early March, seven major AI sector players pledged to offset their electricity consumption by investing in new power generation — though critics say voluntary commitments fall short of what is needed.
Other communities have pushed back, too. Last year, cities including Chandler, Arizona, and College Station, Texas, rejected proposed data centers — though neither case drew the national attention that New Brunswick has.
“I really hope this sets a precedent,” said CJ. “To show people that if they take action and publicly voice their opposition, they actually stand a chance” of winning.
That momentum is now reaching state capitals. In the coming weeks, Maine could become the first state to enact a moratorium on construction of these massive facilities — which house millions of processors that form the backbone of the internet and AI.
In New Jersey — the most densely populated state in the country — numerous bills to regulate data centers are under consideration. Kratovil, the New Brunswick mayor, alongside prominent left-wing politicians including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is pushing for a more comprehensive statewide moratorium.
“We want feasibility studies and a pause, so we know the actual local impacts — not just rushing ahead at full speed,” said Dziobek.
How to Stop a Data Center
April 10, 2026
Image by Logan Voss.
“Why do you think you can stop a $1.2billion University of Michigan and Los Alamos project?” was the first Instagram message we received at the launch of the Stop the Data Center campaign in Ypsilanti, Michigan. For us, the question was not “why?” but “how?”
Our campaign is built against an exceptional and horrifying facility right in our backyards. We have had some huge wins in recent months through the connections within our community and through connections with other site fights and AI resistance efforts nationally and internationally. Site fights cannot win solely by the power of the local people: huge inspiring underground networks back these fights, write policies and moratoriums, resource actions, share lessons, and make their stories loud. We hope you tell our story after reading this piece and our energy aggregates. If you are reading and want to help stop a nuclear weapons research facility data center in a beautiful small town in Michigan: here is your call to action and your invitation to link in!
The Origin of the Campaign
In December 2024, the University of Michigan (U-M) and Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that they would build “the world’s fastest supercomputer” — “the biggest, baddest” for “national security.” This collaboration with the makers of the atomic bomb would destroy a beloved local green waterfront park in the process. Not only is the park where our kids learned to ride their bikes, where we throw birthdays and host gatherings, not only is it where we fish and kayak on the ancient river with our neighbors; but long before we lived here, the park has been home to herons, cormorants, and bald eagles. People of every political background gather here and live in its watershed. And, in a bipartisan chorus, a kind of comradery so hard to come by in 2026, all of our canvassed neighbors – from Trump 2028 flag-wavers to queer commune dwellers – agree that no one wants to sacrifice our life and this watershed for this facility.
Through public presentations, conversations and publications we ascertained that the facility is aimed at nuclear weapons testing and simulation, military drone surveillance and geospatial targeting. We do not want a data center. We do not want nuclear war. We do not support a nuclear warfare AI data center. We do not want to be in the eye of war. We do not want this war machine at this park, in Ypsilanti, or anywhere. And we will not stop until it is stopped.
Stop the Data Center Campaign wins have come slowly, but have since picked up momentum. Since October 2025, the University was pushed to waste time looking at other sites; nearby Ypsilanti City unanimously signed a resolution for Peace joining the Mayors for Peace against supporting nuclear weapons with our tax dollars or community resources; the timeline on the project was pushed back a year; the township unanimously signed a bill to pull the $100m taxpayer “strategic fund” awarded to the center; the project was pushed a second year; and our city has begun receiving international attention for the atrocity of this war facility. The township board passed a resolution against the data center, specifically decrying nuclear war. Breaking ground on this data center was punted into the Trump presidency, and while its proposal lacks unified vision and will be outlandishly expansive, we recognize that we are living in a time where tech’s “move fast and break things” has combined forces with the destructive power of fascism. What should be confined to sci-fi horror is a very real threat.
Successfully delaying the project has been hard fought, especially with adversaries we know are not playing fair. For example, Los Alamos held a “town hall” on U-M campus in Ann Arbor with only limited paid parking, not walkable or with straightforward public transit from Ypsilanti. It was not publicized in West Willow, the predominantly black and brown neighborhood where the facility is proposed to be built. Six activists showed up in protest and were immediately arrested – no warnings or requests to leave before being taken directly to jail. In fact, most were in the process of leaving and were chased to then be arrested. They were then charged with two felony counts of trespassing (at… a community meeting) and larceny (for… eating the food at the event). Months later, the charges were dropped directly by the County Prosecutor Eli Savit saying these unusual arrests violate our first amendment rights.
The hundreds of activists in our bottom-up campaign are linked by the shared desire to Stop the Data Center. There are not central operatives or even shared intermediate goals: instead, we support a diversity of tactics where every community member chooses their path based on their own skills and their own first order concerns. The concerns span across the political spectrum: environmental, political, infrastructural, existential, financial, about clean water or about cost of living, about property value or corporate lies, about university overreach or tax exemption, against AI, against military investment or against nuclear weapons.
What began as a wheatpaste and sticker campaign snowballed into a dedicated group of hundreds of people engaging in daily action. Our group chats are all always spitting fire and in action. Our campaign strengthens our local community and builds strong connections to other site fights nationally and AI resistance networks internationally. We are fighting this fight locally with the support of hundreds of activists from all over the world committed to stopping this data center.
Launching a Campaign
We’ve centered building relationships and growing an intergenerational, multiracial coalition because we understand that the data center is a threat to us all. Touted as the “New Manhattan Project,” the technology this data center will enable is decidedly death-dealing, and has the propensity to fuel destruction at a global scale. Stopping this nightmare from taking root requires a campaign that allows for a diversity of tactics, invites folks from all walks of life to participate, and builds on the wide range of skills and resources that exist when we come together. While the University of Michigan and Los Alamos laboratory are fantasizing about nuclear weapons, AI driven military technologies, and the blood-money warfare economies inevitably accumulate, we are committed to protecting our neighbors, community, and our planetary home.
As soon as the data center was announced, the Stop the Data Center collective formed a dedicated months-long canvassing wheatpasting and campaign to get the word out, linking to an instagram, substack, and whatsapp group. Canvassing was wildly successful; canvassers were regularly welcomed in to chat, given hugs, offered snacks, and people pulled out their phones and followed on social media immediately. Canvassing built support for our campaign against the data center, and set the groundwork for widespread wheatpasting.
Wheatpasting happened all over town! The data center is slotted for Ypsilanti, a small town just outside of Ann Arbor where U-M main campus sits. Wheatpasters hit both Ypsi and Ann Arbor, focusing mostly on downtown areas, Eastern Michigan University (in Ypsi) and U-M. Folks printed flyers, used thermal printers and USPS labels to make stickers and printed big murals that were wheatpasted in different areas. Lots of different punks were wheatpasting, with different folks leading it. To facilitate this, people put together easy grab and go kits and passed them out.
This got the news out so effectively. People asking about it had hundreds of upvotes on reddit r/ypsi and r/annarbor. It only took a few months for the instagram to hit 1,000 followers. The first assembly meeting had 83 attendees!
Growing a Campaign
We know this is a long fight, and that it is one fight in a patchwork quilt of many. Our campaign is about growing community as much as growing a movement: we prioritize caring for each other along the way and opening the doors as wide as possible to bring all sorts of people into the mix. This looks like: food team bringing mostly vegan allergen-aware food to all the events, childcare at our big meetings, relationship-building being a priority, including a working group dedicated to welcoming and orienting people to the campaign, another working group aimed at making friends/bringing current friends into the fold, a celebration of art and music against the data center. We are always trying to reach out to more people, through canvassing (both door knocking in the neighborhood and bringing flyers and chatting with folks at local events), social media, yard signs, and wheatpasting the town. Of course, we could do more to welcome and care for each other, and if you have energy or ideas, you’re invited to join or start a working group!
We embrace the beautiful synergy of many people trying lots of different tactics to stop the data center. We don’t think any one person or group acting alone can stop the data center; instead we are all made stronger with each other, and invite everyone to try out what they think works and engage according to their skills. We talk strategy together and think deeply about how to effect change in the world. For example, lobbying the government has created slow downs for the rest of folks to use to build power and organize. Legal tactics that center government engagement can be low barrier welcoming pathways for folks who aren’t yet sure they want to participate in other tactics, like home demonstrations. The affinity groups doing home demonstrations add teeth and pressure for decision makers to work with the legislative groups, and create interest and drama for the media and social media teams. It’s all an experiment, and studying what happens when different people do different things is useful to everyone.
We use spokescouncil and assembly meetings to learn from each other, strengthen our strategy, and grow our campaign. Spokescouncil meetings are small monthly meetings where a single spoke from each working group attends to touch base, give updates, and coordinate. It is a place where different working groups can make asks and offers. For example, the food team can say, “If you’re hosting an event and want us to make food, please let us know, we are usually available. Also, especially working groups in the welcoming network, please send the good cooks our way, we could use a few more people on the roster; right now it’s a few people doing most of the cooking.” There is no central governing body: the working groups have full sovereignty over their organization and actions. If folks are excited about an idea, they can ask for help from others in the campaign, and we honor everyone’s autonomy and critical thinking skills in deciding on their priorities to stop the data center.
Monthly assemblies bring everyone together to coordinate tactics and envision our next steps. There are usually 50-100 attendees, and the assemblies are structured to be welcoming to new folks while also offering time to chat, mingle, and relationship build among more experienced folks. We start all together with a brief orientation and history of the campaign. We go over our two working agreements (1. Don’t publicly condemn each other 2. Don’t snitch). There are often between 15 and 25 working groups active at any time, and after they pitch their work to the crowd, we divide up into working groups where new people get oriented and plans are made for the coming month. There is always food and childcare. Childcare working group makes special effort for kids to be involved in fighting the data center, often through art projects!
Home demonstrations have successfully pressured the township board to put the data center on the agenda for us. All summer we went to township board meetings with between 80 and 150 people speaking out against the data center. No members of the public spoke in favor of the data center. Still, the township board refused to put the data center on the agenda. Then one Saturday afternoon, about 40 people wearing wacky ties went to the homes of several loudly pro-data center township board members and chanted, “We tried emails, we tried meetings, now we are at your doorstep, yelling screaming” and “This is a meeting/ We are the council. Put us on the agenda/ The data center is cancelled!”. Demonstrators generally stayed on the sidewalk and disruptions lasted no more than ten minutes.
The next township board meeting, we were on the agenda and they passed several substantive resolutions against the data center. In response, Chris Kolb, the University of Michigan’s Vice President for Government Relations who is spearheading pro-data center propaganda, mocked township board members’ concerns about the home demos. Yet, after he and a dozen other university officials were visited during the regional gathering against the Los Alamos data center, he immediately hired private security to sit outside his house 24/7 (which has not prevented several more visits). The home demos have continued, with dozens of U of M and Los Alamos officials receiving visits.
We have a strong lineage of anti-nuclear war and peace activists in whose footsteps we follow. Postcards for Peace is one intergenerational working group carrying this tradition forward, sending postcards to the homes and offices of officials supporting the data center, pleading with them to consider our collective future. First, nearby Ypsilanti city has signed onto Mayors for Peace and sent a letter to all concerned parties asking them not to build this data center. This inspired Ypsilanti Township Board to pass a resolution against the data center on the basis of being against nuclear weapons.
Challenges Ahead
The stakes are high; Los Alamos is calling their investment in AI (of which this data center is the crown jewel), “the New Manhattan Project.” Surpassing the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb created by the first Manhattan Project, a Manhattan 2.0 has the capacity to change and literally destroy our whole world. The first atomic bomb was created without consideration of the implications for decades to come, ranging from school children hiding under their desk fearing total annihilation to the ongoing devastation wrought by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people building this data center are focused on building the “fastest, baddest” computing system, and they do so without any concern around how this will affect the air we breath, the cancer rates of Ypsilanti citizens, the way more bigger nuclear weapons and plutonium pits will poison the only planet we have, and redefining our political and social relations based on the violence and destruction we will be capable of. Our world depends on our fight winning, but we are up against many powerful institutions.
The University of Michigan is a particularly powerful enemy. They have a state constitutional amendment saying that they do not have to follow local government’s laws and ordinances, so the township board cannot enforce their permitting procedure with the University. They don’t pay taxes on the land they own, and will not be required to even contribute to the municipality for fire protection and the other services the township offers. They have a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Los Alamos, protected by military security clearance, preventing them from having to share even the most basic details of the project (e.g., what cooling method will they use, what companies will they contract to build it?) Many other corporate data centers would have been defeated by the efforts that this campaign has taken so far.
Building Networks of Community Resistance
The specific data center we are fighting is a nuclear weapons AI data center, so we know it is designed for destruction. However, many data centers will be used to fuel US militarism and advance the warfare state without any explicit reference to nuclear weapons. The ten biggest data centers in the world are owned by the Department of Energy, the government body responsible for managing nuclear power. Under Trump appointee Chris Wright’s leadership, is primarily focused on nuclear weapons. Individual boycotts against ChatGPT will never be enough to stop the proliferation of AT data centers, which enjoy massive tax breaks and strong government funding. It will take tireless and collective mass organizing to stop them.
Data Centers are overtaking the country, being forced on many different communities, 15-20 are being proposed in Michigan in 2026. Our story of a community coming together and fighting back is one we want to share with folks and hope to be a model that can inspire other communities. As more local governments have stopped data centers, corporations and government entities have gotten more forceful. Because of the extraordinary powers of the University of Michigan to ignore local zoning, we have been forced to be more creative in our resistance. We hope that the spokescouncil model and tactics like home demos are useful to others fighting hard to stop data centers.
Building networks of collaborative campaigns and political and environmental education are key to stopping the onslaught of data centers and war machine facilities. There are more of us who will suffer from data centers than profit from it. We’re going to need each other to win this fight.
