> People living near data centers have gotten wise to the fact that local people pay most of the externalities of data centers and AI, but the benefits mostly go elsewhere.

That's true of just about every industrial, commercial, civic, or residential site. It's the fundamental premise behind every NIMBY protest ever. The benefit of each individual site always runs disproportionately to people further away. It's only in the aggregate, i.e. each individual enjoying the cumulative externalized benefits from far-off, that the equation could ever balance.

Data centers could pay locals a sufficient amount that it overcomes the NIMBY opposition. If you can’t pay locals enough while still generating value for external beneficiaries then the project simply isn’t economical.