GLOBALVARS
0
The data center lobby is launching a big PR blitz on television and social media, racking up millions of views on evidently AI-generated content boasting economic impacts from new projects and hitting against criticism around energy and water use.
In an interview with me Wednesday, Data Center Coalition CEO Josh Levi explained how and why his organization – the largest and most prominent data center trade group – stood up an “evolving” national advertising campaign called America Connects.
Like me, up until now, you might’ve interacted with the campaign’s materials without knowing it. For weeks I’ve been getting texts from people in my life who know I write about data centers asking if I’d seen these ads on TV streaming platforms and social media sites boasting benefits from data centers, or pushing back on complaints about energy and water use. Most of the videos were quite similar, appeared to be generated using AI (with no AI labeling), and were racking up millions in views and impressions.
“Our paychecks, our hospitals, our national security – all run through data centers,” states one voiceover in a YouTube ad targeted at the Longhorn State with more than 12 million views as of today.
“In Texas, they’re doing more than keeping us connected. Data centers support high-paying jobs and pay billions in taxes. Money that can lower your bills, make schools and roads better and communities safer. And new technology means data centers consume minimal water while funding new power generation for everyone. Data centers: built in Texas. For Texas.”
These videos each are hosted on channels named for specific campaigns in individual states. In Georgia, it’s called Connected Georgia. There’s a Texas Connects, an Indiana Connects, and a Pennsylvania Connects. At least eight state campaigns are happening right now and I’m told more should be expected in the near future. Each state campaign has a near-identical website with links to their promoted videos, statistics about state-level tax contributions, and employment from data centers, and a somewhat modern-looking red, white, and blue design with moving graphics on the landing page.
But finding out who was behind these videos and websites took a lot of digging. None of the state campaign websites have contact information and they were all registered by a proxy firm that gets web addresses for entities that want to remain anonymous. Most of the advertising itself was opaque; it’s not easy to research TV commercial spends and Google doesn’t disclose how much a company or person pays to promote individual ads. But there were signs of significant spending, as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram advertising disclosures revealed to me there was five-figure spending on static images, resulting in millions of potential impressions.
Eventually I was able to figure out what was going on. Each of the state campaigns also described themselves online as nonprofits but in fact, there is one nonprofit. It initially formed for the first state campaign, Virginia Connects. Its public 2024 tax disclosures show the campaign was formed by Levi and others working with the Data Center Coalition. On the DCC’s website, the trade group does have a landing page for what it calls “America Connects” and directs people to each state campaign but, as of today, the organization describes them as “regional coalitions” they “partner” with on “helping educate and engage citizens, policymakers, and other stakeholders on the data center industry, its benefits, and key issues including energy, water, economic development, and community engagement.”
In our interview, Levi explained these state campaigns aren’t just partners – they’re creations of a single nonprofit he said was “stood up” by the trade group named America Connects, and it began in 2024 through the Virginia Connects campaign. America Connects is now “a vehicle by which the broader community can engage and participate” in what Levi described as “broader industry messaging” that isn’t “just project by project.” It’s a direct response, Levi said, to the lack of any industrywide PR offensive challenging the mountain of public opposition to data centers shown in poll after poll. (With the exception of that one Meta ad campaign.)
“What we have heard very clearly is that a lot of the partners we work with, but also a lot of the voices from the public at large, is that the industry broadly needs to do a better job communicating. A better job talking about what we do, how we do it, and about the positive benefits of what localities can expect from data center development,” Levi said.
Levi told me the core of the group is at least three people: himself; Allison Gilmore, the chief operating officer of the DCC; and Kevin Hughes, the group’s treasurer and the chief external affairs officer at the data center developer STACK Infrastructure. He said I should expect “an expansion on the board” but declined to say who or what companies. Part of the team also includes LINK Public Affairs, a communications firm based in Virginia that helped on the initial campaign in the state.
I asked how an industry-backed campaign like this would help with the backlash. “Silence breeds mistrust, fundamentally. It is critically important as we see continuing conversations around the data center industry – what it does, what it doesn’t do, how it does – is part of informing those conversations,” Levi replied. “It is important the industry not be silent and be an active contributor in terms of the public dialogue around data centers. This is that.”
The DCC wouldn’t tell me how much is being spent on the America Connects campaign and it’s impossible to know from what’s publicly available.
Here’s what Levi would say about the money: that America Connects is funded by the data center “ecosystem generally,” including developers, companies within the supply chain, and “workforce voices.” But Levi wouldn’t even confirm if they were spending more than they had in just the Virginia campaign, which sort of logically has to be the case if they’ve expanded this effort.
“White it’s maybe not a satisfying answer, we will spend what we have to when it comes to ensuring we reach people where they are. But I’m not able to provide any kind of concrete number for you.”
