CoreWeave CEO: America's data center backlash won't stop the AI build-out

CoreWeave CEO: America's data center backlash won't stop the AI build-out

Brian Sozzi · Executive Editor

Wed, September 9, 2026 at 5:52 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• CRWV -1.77%
• GS -0.11%

Seemingly every Big Tech company is trying to put a data center in your backyard to fuel their AI ambitions.

The biggest roadblocks to that actually happening are twofold.

The first challenge is finding the skilled humans, such as welders and electricians, to build a state-of-the-art facility that will suck massive amounts of power from the electrical grid so we all can create AI-generated videos.

The second is getting sign-off from local lawmakers who are facing backlash from voters over noise from data centers and higher utility bills.

"The debate around data centers has been expansive," CoreWeave (CRWV) CEO Michael Intrator told Yahoo Finance from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference (video above), noting that the discussion has become politically charged ahead of the midterm elections.

"But let's be very clear," Intrator continued, "the demand for compute will not be altered by a jurisdiction saying you're not allowed to build data centers here. All that will do is cause the data center to move to a different location. It will cause perhaps an increase in cost, but ultimately the data center will be built and delivered because the market signals are for that to happen."

Intrator's CoreWeave is a key player in deploying chips from the likes of Nvidia (NVDA) that are powering the AI boom.

The backlash is real and is slowing the build-out of critical AI infrastructure.

The first three months of this year saw local data center opposition block or delay 75 projects worth $130 billion in planned construction, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. This was about the same number of projects impacted in all of 2025.

Meanwhile, a new Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their local area, with nearly half (48%) strongly opposed.

Barely a quarter favor data center projects, with 7% strongly in favor.

"We have done a lot of work to derisk our pipeline," Intrator said. "And those things include a really diversified portfolio of places that we're building infrastructure within the domestic US, but also, we've spent a good bit of time building up our pipeline of international data centers. And so we've got in excess of a gigawatt worth of capacity outside of the US."

"I feel like it is incumbent upon us to really put in the work and incumbent upon the industry to put in the work so that we communicate with these communities we're finding ourselves in to be good neighbors and to build high-quality infrastructure," he added. "Not all data centers are built the same, but we're really focused on being a good provider."

Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor, host of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast, and a member of Yahoo Finance's editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.

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