The Data Center Wave Is Headed for Georgia. Erin Brockovich Is Already Tracking It.

The woman who took on PG&E and won has a new fight, and communities across Northwest Georgia are already in the middle of it.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, made famous by the 2000 Julia Roberts film chronicling her successful battle against corporate groundwater contamination in California, has launched a new project aimed at giving people a platform to speak up and voice concerns about AI data centers in their communities. The tool, called the Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting website, features an interactive map tracking data centers across the United States, operational or under construction, while allowing residents to upload photos, locations, and firsthand reports.

After putting out a call for reports in April, Brockovich received nearly 4,000 submissions in the first month alone. The single most common concern, she noted, was one word that kept appearing in submission after submission: transparency. (TechCrunch)

That word will resonate with plenty of people in Floyd County, Bartow County, and the communities surrounding them.

Georgia ranks fourth in the nation for crowdsourced data center reports on Brockovich’s map, with 126 submissions logged so far. And some of the action driving that number is happening in Northwest Georgia. (Fast Company)

In Rome, the remaining 100 acres of the Battey Business Complex, located on the former Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital property on North Division Street, was sold in August 2025 by the Rome-Floyd Development Authority for $5.7 million to Atlas Development, which is developing data center projects in Coosa and on Plainville Road. (Data Center Dynamics)

The final approval in Rome came despite opposition from Floyd County residents who organized a public campaign. Concerns over noise and light pollution, construction traffic, environmental issues, and visual impact had no effect on the final decision. Supporters argued the project could generate as much as $50 million in annual tax revenue for Floyd County. (Georgia Media Group)

Meanwhile, a proposed facility of approximately 2.4 million square feet is planned to sit on more than 200 acres off Vann Road in Coosa, right beside Coosa Middle School. (Coosa Valley News)

Over in Bartow County, the scale is even larger. Project Bunkhouse, a planned data center on Taff Road in Stilesboro, would span 876 acres and 8.6 million square feet across 12 buildings, with an initial investment estimated at $19 billion. The property is currently farmland near Plant Bowen. Bartow County currently has multiple data center projects either under construction or proposed as of early 2026. (Coosa Valley News)

The concerns Brockovich is hearing nationally are the same ones surfacing locally. Residents are worried about high energy usage and its environmental impact, cooling systems that require substantial water resources and can strain local water supplies, and frequent hardware upgrades that generate significant volumes of electronic waste. Noise, light pollution, and the speed at which deals get done before the public knows about them are also recurring themes. (TechCrunch)

That last point cuts close to home. Brockovich has been direct about what she considers unacceptable: projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who do not return calls, and local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was even being considered. (Data Center Dynamics)

Georgia has drawn significant data center investment in part because of strong connectivity as a Southeast internet exchange hub, combined with state and local tax breaks and access to both talent and transport infrastructure. In other words, the conditions that make it attractive to developers are the same ones that can leave communities feeling like they are already behind by the time they find out a project is coming. (Newsweek)

Brockovich’s map is a living document, and she is asking people to add to it. If you live near a data center that is operational, under construction, or rumored in your community, you can report it at brockovichdatacenter.com.

The race to build AI infrastructure is moving fast. Northwest Georgia is already in it, whether communities were ready or not.