When the Machines Move Next Door: A Christian Response to America’s AI Data Center Boom

Last June, Lee D’Amore spent his evenings planting red “No Data Center” yard signs across his Chesapeake, Virginia neighborhood.

A resident living just blocks from a proposed massive server facility, D’Amore wasn’t prepared to wait quietly while the decision was made without him. When the city council convened its public hearing, he and his neighbors showed up and held the floor for more than two hours, one voice after another against the project. “Once they’re built, there’s nothing you can do,” he told the council. “If they violate the decibels, what are you going to do? Fine them $1,000? That’d be like me asking you for a penny. Seriously, once this thing is built, it’s all over but the crying.” The council voted unanimously to block the data center, and the chamber erupted in applause.

D’Amore’s neighborhood fight is a microcosm of a national standoff that Christians would be unwise