Data Center Rebellion Convening 2026
The past few weeks SWU staff have helped Public Citizen, Climate Justice Alliance, and Texas Youth Power Alliance plan a Data Center Rebellion Convening here in San Antonio, TX. Over 60 organizers and community members from across Texas gathered for two days to learn more about the very real threat to our land, water, health, and quality of life hyper scale data centers will be if we can not organize to stop them being built. Many organizers, including those from San Marcos, Taylor, and Tuscan, AZ came out to share their tactics used during their respective fights to stop a data center from coming to their homes. While San Marcos and Tuscan have successfully stopped a data center being built, the fight continues to keep data centers at bay and Taylor’s fight is just beginning.
Currently Virginia has the most data centers of any state but Texas comes in second with California in third. San Antonio currently has 50 data centers in various states of completion-from already built, to under construction, to being proposed, and the number seems to continue growing every day. The vast majority of data centers in SA are heavily concentrated in District 6 which led to their Councilman, Ric Galvan, to write a Council Consideration Request (CCR) asking for more information on hyper scale data centers so that San Antonio can hope to regulate them. The CCR was co-signed by D2 rep, Jalen McKee-Rodriquez, D4 rep, Edward Mungia, D5 rep, Teri Castillo, and D8 rep, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez.
Hyper scale data centers use an incredible amount of water and energy while also polluting water and causing noise pollution. They also use diesel engine powered back up generators which cause major amounts of pollution as well. Another layer is that the increased need for data centers of this size are tied directly to the military industrial complex, surveillance state, and their use of generative artificial intelligence, proving that all systems of oppression are intertwined. We can not separate what is happening at home with hyper scale data centers causing high utility bills, destroying drinking water, and causing pollution from ICE raids and concentration camps from Palestine and Sudan, from US aggressions in Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela and on and on.
The fight against hyper scale data centers is an important battle that we must fight. To join in, please join Climate Justice San Antonio (CJSA) meetings every other Thursday from 6:30-8pm. Our next meeting is this Thursday 4/3/2026 at SWU offices.
