Forty-eight data center projects were delayed or blocked by local opposition in 2025, representing more than $156 billion in potential investment across 42 states, according to data from Data Center Watch — and that resistance is accelerating into 2026, creating a new variable in what had been a largely uncomplicated growth story for the HVAC manufacturers supplying thermal management equipment to the sector.
McKinsey & Company projects that data centers globally will require $6.7 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2030, driven primarily by the AI computing buildout that has already begun reshaping commercial HVAC equipment demand. For the HVAC industry, that projection represents the largest sustained equipment demand cycle in decades. But a growing number of communities are challenging data center construction on grounds of energy consumption, water use, noise, utility cost increases, and property value concerns — generating permitting delays and outright project cancellations that HVAC suppliers cannot afford to dismiss as isolated political noise.
Scale of the Backlash
The opposition is not concentrated in a single region or political alignment. Data Center Watch's 2025 count of delayed and blocked projects spans 42 states, and the legislative response has extended from local governments to the federal level. Senators Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced a proposal for a moratorium on AI data center construction, to give federal agencies time to establish safety and environmental safeguards before approving new facilities. In Michigan, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers introduced legislation proposing a halt to all new data center construction through April 1, 2027. A Prince William County, Virginia project valued at $24.7 billion was delayed because of widespread local opposition, a single-project example of the scale of investment that community opposition can affect.
How HVAC Manufacturers Are Responding
Major HVAC manufacturers told ACHR News in June that their response to the backlash centers on positioning advanced cooling technology as a solution to communities' specific concerns rather than a source of them. Trane's vice president for strategy and systems product management, Matt Orcutt, said data center growth is happening in a more visible environment with understandable questions around energy use, water, and overall impact, and that the appropriate response is to lead with greater clarity around sustainability and performance rather than to minimize communities' concerns.
Aaron Lewis, chief commercial officer for global data center solutions at Johnson Controls, said the HVAC industry needs to do a better job communicating innovations at every level — from manufacturers to the contractors and project teams working on individual sites — and that the most accurate and timely source of information about how cooling technology addresses community concerns is the contractor working directly on the project in a specific community. Lewis added that data center projects create hundreds or thousands of local jobs through the service and maintenance work required to operate the buildings, a positive community impact he said the industry needs to articulate more effectively.
Technology Responses to Each Concern
On water usage, HVAC manufacturers are pointing to the shift away from cooling towers toward closed-loop systems and dry coolers that recycle water rather than evaporating it at the rates associated with traditional wet cooling. Johnson Controls previewed at the AHR Expo earlier this year its York YK-HT chiller, designed specifically to eliminate water usage in data center cooling applications. Carrier's Coolant Distribution Unit product line, ranging from 1.3 to 5 megawatts, is positioned for chip-level cooling in facilities that want to reduce water-intensive air-side cooling. Liquid cooling at the chip and rack level — the category in which Trane made its LiquidStack acquisition and Carrier built out its QuantumLeap portfolio — reduces both water use and energy consumption relative to legacy air-handling approaches.
On noise, manufacturers said variable-speed fan systems, magnetic-bearing chillers, and site-specific acoustic engineering have reduced the noise footprint of large HVAC installations near residential areas. On power use effectiveness, purpose-built data center cooling equipment operating with tight temperature controls is significantly more efficient than legacy commercial HVAC converted to serve data center loads, reducing the net energy consumption per unit of computing output and, in theory, moderating the grid impact that communities cite as a central concern. On the broader argument, Greg Jeffers, vice president for data center solutions at Daikin Applied Americas, said flexibility in system design is becoming paramount as cooling technologies and density requirements continue to evolve, and projects designed with adaptability will hold up best over time.
