(This column originally appeared in USA Today)
Deforestation. Habitat destruction. Water and air pollution. Land and resources devoured. Noise. Corporate corruption. Government corruption. Monopolies. Eminent domain. Communities torn apart. Farmland eaten up. Small businesses uprooted. Corporate titans who buy off local politicians with promises of tax revenue.
One industry expert and author called it a “decisive struggle, in which, from the beginning to the end, the fighting will be forced,” with power “rapidly centering in the hands” of “the ablest, the most energetic, and by no means the most scrupulous men in America.”
Except the expert, Charles Francis Adams Jr., didn’t say this in 2026. He said it in the late 1870s. And he wasn’t talking about data centers. He was talking about railroads.
Same fight, different century
In the 19th century, thousands of miles of railroad were built, and the opposition to them was intense. These weren’t organized environmental groups. They were conservationists, local residents, business owners, landowners, parents, farmers, Native American tribes and taxpayers enraged at how their elected leaders were spending their money.
Many in the 19th century didn’t want trains rolling through their backyards. Many today don’t want data center complexes in theirs. You can’t blame them.
Where would America be today without its railroads? Billions were spent moving freight and people faster and more efficiently, fueling economic growth, creating jobs, opening up markets and standardizing the flow of information. The costs were significant, but so were the benefits. We are better off for it.
More than 150 years later, little has changed. Today’s data centers are yesterday’s railroads. They are the infrastructure behind everything that powers our economy. Railroads moved freight. Data centers move information and make modern commerce possible. Yesterday’s railroad barons were Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and James Hill. Today’s builders are the companies behind hyperscale computing: Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Nvidia.
Like all new technologies, railroads destroyed jobs, too. Stagecoach lines, wayside inns and the small towns that depended on them withered as travelers stopped passing through.
But railroads created far more than they destroyed — construction and manufacturing jobs building everything from rail cars to locomotives, and jobs in the cities that boomed at the end of the line. They built entire new industries: national retail, refrigerated food, mass media, mail-order commerce, modern tourism and standardized time.
New jobs, same old panic
Like the railroads, the artificial intelligence applications that data centers power will destroy some jobs. But these technologies have also fueled millions of new businesses in just the past few years, backed by a wave of venture capital.
Robotics, cybersecurity, semiconductor manufacturing and computer components — all are expanding because of AI. And data center construction alone has propped up the building trades through a rough economic stretch.
In just the past 20 years we’ve seen job titles no one had heard of: cannabis compliance manager; remote work coordinator; wellness manager. In the past several years, AI alone has produced prompt engineer, governance manager, automation developer, solutions architect.
The naysayers predicting mass AI unemployment are making the same mistake railroad skeptics made: betting against the human capacity to find new ways to work and contribute. History says that bet loses.
Both railroad and data center constructions have become more efficient over time. Ecological impact eased as energy efficiency improved, technology advanced and resources were used more wisely. Government regulation reined in the worst abuses in the 19th century, and it will do the same today. Communities adjusted. Supply chains adapted.
Today we look back on the railroad debate and wonder what all the fuss was about. Future generations will likely say the same about ours.
None of this excuses poor planning, unnecessary environmental damage or taking property unfairly. Communities deserve a voice.
But they shouldn’t have a veto over infrastructure that benefits an entire nation. Realistically, do we have a choice? Are we simply not going to build data centers — and cede the field to China? To Russia? To Europe? Imagine if that option had been on the table during the railroad debate.
Today’s hyperscale computing giants are as vital to America’s future today as Union Pacific and the Pennsylvania and New York railroads were to a prior century. In both cases, a minority suffered for that expansion. But because of the sacrifices made, hundreds of millions of Americans have gone on to enjoy a quality of life unmatched almost anywhere on the planet.
Every generation faces the same choice: Build the infrastructure that powers the next century, or let fear of disruption preserve the past. Americans chose the railroad. I’m convinced they’ll choose AI infrastructure, too.
