Is there a Christian perspective on AI data centers? One way or another, they are being built at a fast and furious pace.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #275 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
AI data centers are taking their turn in the sun. Americans are planting yard signs saying, “No Data Center,” “Farms Are for Food, Not Data Centers,” “Don't Drain Our Power,” “This Is Our Water. Stop the Data Centers,” and one of my favorites, “You Can't Drink Data.” I saw a few signs like this in Michigan this week.
“Data centers are large industrial facilities filled with servers, cooling equipment, and networking infrastructure. They store, process, and transmit the data that makes AI systems possible. These facilities are among the most resource-intensive developments being built today. In many states, they receive generous tax abatements, discounted utility rates, and expedited zoning approvals. Yet once built, they employ very few local workers compared to the scale of land and resources they consume, leaving communities with long-term costs and limited benefits.”
“The U.S. currently has over 3,000 operational data centers…with more than 1,500 new facilities in various stages of development nationwide. Texas leads with around 140 new projects, closely followed by Virginia with 136, according to a Pew Research survey published in April,” 2026. “The survey also found that 38% of Americans live within 5 miles of at least one operational data center, and because these structures are typically built in clusters, most Americans who live near one data center are also likely to live near another.”
NIMBY is at work—“Not In My Back Yard.” “A Gallup survey conducted in March 2026 found that 71% of Americans oppose AI data centers in their local area, including nearly half who strongly oppose them — a figure that now exceeds opposition to nuclear power plants. More than 188 organized groups in 40 states have formed to contest these projects.”
“The pushback is rooted in something concrete. AI may feel weightless and invisible, but its infrastructure is intensely physical. According to a 2024 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report commissioned by the Department of Energy, American data centers already consume 4.4% of all electricity generated in the United States, with that figure potentially reaching 12% by 2028. New hyperscale facilities can carry power demands equivalent to hundreds of thousands of homes. Cooling systems require billions of gallons of water annually. Transmission corridors, industrial-scale backup generators, and expanded substations follow close behind.”
In July 2026, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called for a ban on new AI data centers in his state. He said, “Any AI data center even thinking about coming here, they got to bring their own money, bring their own power, reuse their own water and do it in a way that reduces the cost of electricity for residents across our state.”
Applying a Christian worldview to Artificial Intelligence often focuses on abstract software—algorithms, deepfakes, or machine consciousness. However, a holistic Christian worldview must also confront the physical reality of AI: the massive data centers that power these digital systems. Scriptural principles of creation care, neighborly love, and opposition to idolatry directly apply to the concrete, steel, and energy demands of AI infrastructure.
Genesis tasks humanity with cultivating and keeping the earth. Some people believe AI data centers challenge this mandate through unprecedented resource consumption. Christians concerned with creation care question the sustainability of electricity and water usage and its impact on local utility bills for families.
Believers must ask whether the rapid expansion of these energy-hungry hubs constitutes faithful stewardship, opportunities for genuine beneficial progress, reckless exploitation of creation, or simply a chance to maximize greed.
Another consideration. Jesus commanded believers to love their neighbors as themselves. In the context of data centers, this love becomes highly localized. Data centers tend to be built near residential communities, straining local power grids, possibly driving up utility costs, and depleting shared water tables. Noise pollution from massive cooling fans, arguably, can lower the quality of life for nearby residents.
New data center proposals sometimes arrive at government offices amidst cloak and dagger techniques vis-à-vis the public. For example, “across the country, data center projects are routinely introduced under code names, shell corporations, or generic project titles. Non-disclosure agreements often limit what local officials and residents can know or share during the approval process. By the time communities understand who is building the facility and what it will demand in terms of water, power, and land, decisions have already been made.
This secrecy allows corporations to move quickly, avoid public scrutiny, and bypass democratic accountability, leaving communities to bear long-term consequences for projects they never meaningfully consented to.” The secretive nature of many corporate data center developments challenges Christian principles of honesty and openness.
AI data centers already exist in Michigan. For example, in 2015, Switch, Inc., a company specializing in hyperscale data centers, acquired the former Steelcase Pyramid building and announced plans to transform it into a massive data center. In 2017, the initial Switch Pyramid data-center facility became operational.
In the 2020s, Switch continued expanding the campus and its power capacity, increasingly positioning it for hyperscale and AI/exascale computing.
Some argue that, spiritually and morally, data centers represent a modern manifestation of the Tower of Babel—monuments built to centralize human knowledge, power, and autonomy apart from God. “Artificial intelligence is consolidating power in ways few technologies have matched. Whoever commands the infrastructure increasingly influences commerce, communications, military systems, and the flow of information itself.” Who controls power is not morally neutral.
The pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) through hyper-scale computing can easily slide into digital idolatry. If society treats data centers as temples of ultimate truth and apex problem-solvers, it displaces the Creator. Some theological commentary links the massive data aggregation required by AI to broader concerns about centralized control, digital idolatry, and end-times technological adoption.
Some fear AI data centers, or to the point, AI, as some kind of threat to human autonomy, that maybe in Terminator or Star Trek Android fashion AI will develop trans-humans making humans expendable. This is science fiction and fantasy.
Extraordinary computational abilities do not equate with distinctly human qualities of emotion, consciousness, morality, and meaning. Read your Bible. The End Times, when they come, are populated by human beings, not robots.
Some observers suggest that physical infrastructure like servers and data centers are morally neutral tools depending on how they are used, while others argue they actively contribute to environmental strain or future surveillance systems. A Christian worldview reminds us that omniscience belongs to God alone. Relying on massive server farms to solve deep existential or moral human problems misplaces our faith.
A Christian approach to AI data centers would seem to demand, at a minimum, that the physical infrastructure of the digital age honor God's earth, i.e. creation care; protect communities, i.e., love our neighbors; and maintain humility regarding human innovation, i.e., acknowledge AI is not the Second Coming but a shiny new tool to use for the glory of God and well-being of mankind.
At the same time, Christians need not and should not position themselves as obstacles to all AI data centers. We do ourselves and the Church a disservice if we become “the resistance” and in Luddite fashion reject or stay aloof from AI simply because it is being used by some for sinful purposes or because we do not yet fully understand it’s potential or ramifications.
We are better off, and I would argue more aligned with what God expects of us if we apply our discernment skills—our Christian critical thinking—to AI just like everything else.
Determine what we should use, how, and why. Help others identify AI potholes and pitfalls and how to avoid them. Harness the blessing of this new technology for the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ throughout the earth.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026
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