CoreWeave CEO cites public AI pushback as reaction to rapid change

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator has a message for communities fighting AI data centers in their backyards: the computing demand isn’t going away, it’s just going to find a different backyard. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference on September 9, Intrator framed the growing wave of public resistance to AI infrastructure as a natural human response to the dizzying speed of technological change. He called the pace “frightening” for many people. The numbers behind the backlash The scale of opposition is no longer anecdotal. A Brookings Institution analysis found that 75 data center projects, collectively worth roughly $130 billion, were delayed or outright blocked by local resistance in just the first quarter of 2026. That three-month tally matches the total number of projects impacted across all of 2025, suggesting the anti-data-center movement is gaining momentum, not losing it. Public polling tells a similar story. A Gallup survey found that 70% of Americans oppose AI data centers being built in their local area. Nearly half, 48%, expressed strong opposition. The complaints tend to cluster around a few familiar grievances: noise from cooling systems, surgin...