That's a weird way to reason about it.

Data centers polute their air, use up their water, increase their energy cost and make an unbearable noise in their neighborhood. But sure, they are simply anti progress for no reason.

None of those things are inherently true. I know it’s happening with a few DCs in the US operated by scrupulous people, but it’s far from the normal.

Datacenters don’t need to use much water outside of normal office needs. They don’t need to increase energy costs. They don’t need to pollute or make any noise in normal conditions.

If they do any of those things in normal operations, it’s due to lacking regulations or the lack of enforcement of existing regulations.

Do you think people would still oppose it if hypothetically data centres didn't use that much water? hint: this is not a hypothetical