“Data centers do not make good neighbors: they guzzle up municipalities’ water supplies and dump polluted water, consume more power than entire cities, dehydrate watersheds that feed our crops and animals, decimate massive amounts of land and wildlife habitat, redirect migration patterns, and create noise and air pollution . . . they increase electric, water, and heating bills, and decrease property values and the ability to resell homes . . . Data centers push our living systems towards collapse. Nuclear warfare is collapsing. There is no justification for this center, here or anywhere.”
At this time on the world clock, it’s imperative to fight fascism with everything we’ve got. In 2025, that means, in large part, fighting data centers. Yet, state-level politicians have proven all too eager to sell out our communities and natural resources to the Trump-backed, billionaire-led data centers. We are frankly inundated with their proposals and projections here in Michigan. Their highly speculative and wanton buy-in of AI infrastructure bolsters the death cult of disaster capitalism that decimates Michiganders’ land, labor, and lives.
On January 17, 2025, Governor Whitmer opened a floodgate of statewide incentives to expand data center production by signing HB-
4906. On October 30, 2025, she bent the knee to Trump megadonors Sam Altman of Open AI and Larry Ellison of Oracle, celebrating the multi-billion dollar deal touted as the “largest investment in Michigan history.” This move sacrifices 250 acres in Saline Township to a facility that would sap over 1 gigawatt of power annually, leaving DTE executives ecstatic about potential rate hikes while many Michiganders are already unable to afford power amidst faulty service. We see new data centers proposed all over southeast Michigan in Augusta, Milan, and Salem, and we have seen enough.
In Ypsilanti, the University of Michigan (U-M) Regents eagerly joined the data center death cult in an unprecedented effort for classified war research. In December 2024, they announced their $850 million investment in a partnership with the institution responsible for developing, testing, and deploying the nuclear bomb through the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who oversees and shapes research directions of the 17 National Labs, including LANL, has heralded the US government’s buildup of AI infrastructure as “the Second Manhattan Project.” LANL’s primary focus is on nuclear weapons development, branded as national security, and they are contributing $300 million to the partnership. U-M officials state they are building the “biggest, baddest, fastest computer in the world,” with over 90% of the facility’s computational power slated for LANL’s classified warfare project, despite the project advertising forefronting small potential non-classified contributions to fields such as medicine and climate science. This sweetheart deal provides small computing wins to the university while throttling the needle forward on nuclear war for this fascist regime. Not just any data center, but a war machine imposed on Ypsilanti and the backs of Michigan taxpayers.
Buying up over one hundred acres of Huron riverfront land, U-M is receiving statewide tax and zoning exemptions for this data center, as well as $100 million in state funding. Meaning, Michiganders are forced to pay for this war machine. The jobs, the environmental benefits, the efficiencies, the frictionless futures, and more peddled by the death cult are nothing more than AI slop. Ypsilanti Township board members are cataloguing the lies UM and LANL have already told them to move the project forward.
Data centers do not make good neighbors: they guzzle up municipalities’ water supplies and dump polluted water, consume more power than entire cities, dehydrate watersheds that feed our crops and animals, decimate massive amounts of land and wildlife habitat, redirect migration patterns, and create noise and air pollution. In doing so, they increase electric, water, and heating bills, and decrease property values and the ability to resell homes. Residents aggrieve the current contractor shortage, as infrastructure repair stops being a priority if your home is not on the pathway to the data center, and that gas-guzzling generators are often needed because of inundated electric grids. Data centers push our living systems towards collapse. Nuclear warfare is collapsing. There is no justification for this center, here or anywhere.
Localizing a Global Struggle
The Stop the Data Center campaign is comprised of community members across southeast Michigan opposing the construction of the U-M Los Alamos facility. There are hundreds of active members who have self-assembled into an ever-growing number of working groups based on their own skills and individual concerns, such as war and nuclear weaponry, AI and surveillance culture, university exploitation, clean water and air, housing and environmental justice, political corruption, and more. We are a dedicated assortment of families, craftspeople, artists, politicians, technologists, farmers, service workers, journalists, musicians, environmentalists, and office workers. Our campaign and canvassing reveal a community rising as a chorus against this data center. In October, the Ypsilanti City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing the LANL/U-M data center alongside a resolution for peace and nuclear disarmament. The resolution for peace marks a turning point for our campaign.
Our community is strengthened through collective action via Stop the Data Center: cutting stencils for street signs, stickers, and posters; designing social media and blog posts; printing one-pagers to canvas door-to-door; gathering and speaking at council meetings, homes, and public spaces. Gathering in Hydro Park, directly across the river from the proposed site, for community information sessions, frequent nature walks, and barbecues. During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a celebration of the harvest and Earth’s bounty, a sukkah for peace was constructed with the words “DEFEND WATER DESTROY WAR MACHINES.” Hundreds have shown up to local council meetings, giving public statements opposing the data center. Group members speak on international stages, admonishing the nuclear weapons facility and how the State of Michigan is hardening warmongering through taxpayer-funded computing education. We spread the word through both local and world-renowned journalists. All strategies are not only welcome, but also resourced through Stop the Data Center. Maybe most importantly, we cook food, and we write songs, we give each other rides and collectivize care. Whatever comes of this fight, our community grows stronger with each action.
We Keep Us Safe
As ancestors of the future, we must draw on the strength of those before us who fought fascism, colonialism, and imperialism, guiding us as we protect our living relatives and those not yet born. We will see to it that this data center proposal never manifests for them. Rather than handing over $100 million to U-M and Los Alamos for their extractive war machine and just 30 local high paying jobs, we can drive the State of Michigan to reallocate those taxpayer dollars toward community wealth building initiatives like those implemented by the City of Chicago. U-M’s $850 million could follow suit. Those funds could revitalize Ypsilanti’s cherished and currently vacant WWII bomber plant, where workers once built the “arsenal of democracy” to fight Nazis and other fascists abroad, to again be used to fight fascism while rebuilding our local economy. We draw inspiration from many historical fights against fascism, such as in Spain’s Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War, that forged the world’s largest cooperative corporation, the Mondragon federation of worker cooperatives. We pull our neighbors, friends, and loved ones from the death cult’s AI-generating grasp, focusing on shared community, water, and land.
Readers of Riverwise are already tapped into local action and politics, already working against harmful institutions that impact southeast Michigan. Link up with us at @stopthedata on Substack to stay informed and find out about upcoming public meetings.
