Wall Street factors AI backlash into stock market recommendations

The finance world has discovered something that town councils across America already knew: not everyone wants a massive data center humming away next door. Wall Street is formally baking local opposition into its stock recommendations and financing decisions for AI infrastructure projects, marking a notable shift in how the Street evaluates one of the hottest sectors in the market. Bank of America has started listing “community support” as a criterion for assessing whether data center projects are actually ready to move forward. The numbers behind the backlash In the first quarter of 2026 alone, local pushback blocked or delayed 75 data center projects worth roughly $130B. To put that in perspective, that single quarter matched the total disruptions recorded across all of 2025. July 2026 saw 142 protests across 42 states. At least 15 states were contemplating outright moratoriums on data center construction by mid-2026. Meanwhile, hyperscalers are projecting $710B in North American data center spending for 2026. That gap between ambition and local tolerance is precisely what has Wall Street recalibrating. Why analysts are paying attention now Morgan Stanley’s analysis has flagged t...