The dominant tech firms Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have said they intend to spend $320 billion on infrastructure in 2025. This is more than twice what they spent two years ago. The bulk of that money is being put toward new data centers, which house the servers that store, process, and distribute online data, and are increasingly powering artificial intelligence–related operations. As they proliferate across the country, their exorbitant power and water needs are straining the capacity of local utility systems. According to Bloomberg, wholesale electricity prices are up 267 percent in the last five years in areas near data centers.

Many, if not all, of these data centers will also be subsidized by taxpayers, directly siphoning resources away from local communities. Supporters say this extraction is justified by economic development promises — promises that research shows will almost certainly not materialize. Instead of sustained employment growth and ancillary economic development, communities can expect few permanent jobs and even fewer knock-on economic effects.

To prevent sufficient public input into these extractive arrangements, data-center end users such as Google, Meta, and Amazon employ broad nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) that prevent public officials — such as city council members, mayors, state legislators, or public economic development officials — from divulging many pertinent details of these development deals, including the identity of the project’s end user.

In short, Big Tech’s building spree will place new strains and costs on local communities, while providing questionable benefits to residents and taxpayers, all under a corrupt regime of secret agreements that excludes the public from participating in any debate. But, as this policy brief will describe, there are several steps state and local lawmakers can take to bring these secret deals to light and provide more transparency and accountability to Big Tech’s actions in their communities.