by Alander Rocha, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]
July 27, 2026
An organization that represents the data center industry is trying to get Georgians to think of the electricity-hungry facilities more favorably.
Connected Georgia and its parent organization America Connects recently established a state presence when they created a website on June 15 and a YouTube channel the next week, where the organization published a 30-second ad that has garnered over 2 million views in about four weeks.
“From homes to hospitals to businesses, Georgia’s data centers are unlocking a smarter power grid for our communities,” the YouTube ad says.
The rampant growth of data center construction in Georgia has spurred intense statewide outrage at local government meetings where zoning decisions are being made.
A wave of bipartisan bills was introduced and debated during the 2026 legislative session, from proposals to enact a statewide moratorium or claw back tax incentives aimed at attracting the massive facilities to the state. But none of these bills reached the governor’s desk.
Protestors recently packed a Marietta City Council meeting to speak out against a data center proposal that was approved last year. Last week, nearly 1,000 people confronted OpenAI and local officials after the company known for ChatGPT announced it would build a $20 billion data center in Effingham County.
And some candidates for office have tapped into the anger in their campaigns.
It’s unclear at this point how far the group will go in promoting data centers in Georgia, and Josh Levi, the head of the Data Center Coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates for data centers, did not address their plans in a statement for this story. Levi is one of only three people listed on federal tax filings for America Connects, the parent organization behind Connected Georgia. All three are or have been associated with the Data Center Coalition.
The Data Center Coalition is an association representing some of the biggest names in the data center industry, such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The coalition’s representatives have testified against a bill aimed at regulating the facilities in Georgia that ultimately stalled this year. The organization has hired two lobbyists at the state Capitol over the last years but has not spent money on lobbying activity, according to Georgia Ethics Commission data.
In neighboring North Carolina, the group spent $367,272 on an advertising campaign in the state, according to NC Newsline, which is the Georgia Recorder’s sibling newsroom. Connected Georgia does not appear to have filed any contract with the Federal Communications Commission for a similar campaign in Georgia. Levi did not address questions about its specific campaign plans for the Peach State.
In a statement, Levi said that Connected Georgia’s goal is “to inform Georgians about the benefits of data centers.”
“Through Connected Georgia, the industry seeks to better explain the role of data centers to the public — including how they operate, why they are important to our daily lives and the 21st Century economy, as well as information about the industry’s responsible usage of water and its commitment to paying for the energy it uses,” Levi said.
But Mark Woodall, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Georgia, said he believes that data center skepticism and opposition from the public won’t die because of a publicity campaign. He described the effort as an attempt to slow down or prevent potential regulations or policies that have been successfully enacted in other states, pointing to a recent one-year moratorium on data center construction approved in New York and Virginia’s new tax on the electricity data centers use.
“The Data Center Coalition is trying to put lipstick on a pig,” Woodall said. “Nobody believes these people. It doesn’t matter how much money they spend. Nobody’s going to believe them.”
Woodall also pointed to the recent pushback against the massive OpenAI data center project in Effingham County, saying that “there’s one thing that independents, Democrats, and Republicans agree on: they all hate data centers.”
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