US$68 Billion in Data Centre Projects Blocked or Delayed, Report Finds

Local opposition blocked or delayed about 45 US data-centre projects valued at US$68 billion between April and June 2026, according to Data Center Watch research reported by Bloomberg on 21 September.

Resistance is increasingly influencing planning rules. The group said around 30 state legislatures had introduced or adopted measures covering issues such as project locations, electricity and water.

The affected projects represented more than half of the new large-scale developments the group began tracking during the quarter—not more than half of every data-centre project in the United States.

For developers and investors, the findings highlight a practical hurdle: strong demand for computing capacity does not remove the need for local approvals and community support.

The US$68 billion figure describes the value of affected projects. It is not money already lost, and a delayed project is not necessarily a permanently cancelled one.

Source: Bloomberg, via The Edge Singapore, 21 September 2026.

Cover: Server racks at NOIRLab headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. File photograph used for illustration, not an affected project. Photo: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Slovinský, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Cropped.