The buildout, and the backlash
A sourced map of major data centers worldwide alongside the places fighting them: grid moratoriums, hyperscale limits, and the water and power disputes that follow the buildout. Facilities are circles by status; pushback and incidents are diamonds folded under each country.
Zoomed out, each indigo bubble is the number of facilities in that state, over a density shade. Tap a bubble (or zoom in) to drop to individual sites; diamonds mark pushback and incidents. Drag to pan, and tap any marker for the story and source. 3 major facilities on record so far, alongside pushback and incidents. This grows as cases are verified.
Diamonds on the map mark individual events -- pushback such as moratoriums and rejections, and incidents such as water, power, zoning, and pollution disputes -- listed under the country where each happened, alongside the facilities there.
Greater Dublin hosts about 97 percent of Ireland's data centers, which together used roughly 22 percent of national electricity in 2024, among the highest shares in the world. The concentration made Ireland an early test case for grid limits on the buildout.
Community pushback
After grid operator EirGrid warned that surging data center demand around Dublin risked blackouts, regulators effectively froze new grid connections from 2021. In December 2025 the freeze was lifted but replaced with strict conditions, including on-site or battery generation matching full demand and an 80 percent renewable requirement; industry groups call the new rules burdensome while regulators cite security of supply.
The Amsterdam region is one of Europe's largest data center hubs. New hyperscale growth there is now capped and steered to designated sites under national and municipal rules.
Community pushback
The Netherlands restricts large hyperscale data centers of 70 MW or more to a few designated northern sites, and from December 2023 Amsterdam capped new data center growth and required higher efficiency and waste-heat reuse. Officials cite land and grid strain; operators warn the limits push investment elsewhere.
Singapore is a major Southeast Asian data center hub. After a multi-year moratorium it now admits only highly efficient new facilities through a competitive allocation scheme.
Community pushback
Singapore paused new data centers from 2019 to 2022 over power, water, and land limits, then reopened with a competitive scheme admitting only highly efficient, low-emission facilities. The government frames it as sustainable growth; some operators shifted projects to Malaysia and elsewhere in the region.
This map is deliberately broad on one axis and narrow on another. It does not try to plot every data center in the country -- public directories already list thousands of colocation and cloud sites. Instead it maps the major facilities driving today's buildout (operating, under construction, and proposed), and pairs them with the civic story: where communities have blocked, paused, or restricted projects, and where the buildout has triggered concrete disputes over water, power, zoning, or pollution. Facility locations are seeded from public trackers; pushback and incidents are tied to primary or reputable secondary sources and verified before they go on the map.
Know of a facility, a local fight, or a dispute that is not here yet? Send a sourced article and it will be reviewed.
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