May 5, 2026

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Violent Threats and Data Center Resistance Accelerate

AP Photo/Jenny Kane

Americans hold an increasingly negative view of artificial intelligence (AI) and the vast infrastructure supporting its rapid growth and integration into the global economy. In November, The Soufan Center warned in an IntelBrief that violent expressions of anti-AI sentiment, particularly regarding data centers, were percolating online. Subsequent online surveying indicates that this deteriorating sentiment has been accompanied by a rise in direct threats against individuals perceived as driving this technology forward, as well as against policymakers and corporations involved in developing new data centers. The most frequently identified online threat remains physical sabotage of proposed or operational data centers. While economic, environmental, and quality of life concerns lie at the root of (violent) opposition to widespread, rapid AI adoption, broader anti-corporate sentiment has also taken hold. This trend is reflected in both manual analysis and automated scraping of anti-AI social media content. Across this sample, users show high levels of frustration with what they perceive as corporate and governmental indifference to AI’s consequences for human life, anger over the alleged undemocratic nature of decision-making surrounding AI integration, and concern about a further concentration of wealth. A small but growing number of comments are violent in nature.

In the past month, two incidents have taken place in the United States in which violent and intimidating acts were planned and executed against symbolic targets. Until now, opposition to autonomous systems has sporadically reared its head but remained largely symbolic. For instance, sabotage of the self-driving cabs that operate in a handful of U.S. cities has occurred since Waymo, a tributary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, debuted its automated ride-hailing service in San Francisco. A phenomenon known as “coning”, where activists place traffic cones on the hoods of driverless cars, disrupting their sensors and causing them to stop, has become an established protest tactic. However, over the past month, the most extreme and violent anti-AI rhetoric online has materialized in the targeting of individuals seen as responsible for AI adoption and data center construction.

On April 6, Indianapolis councilman Ron Gibson was awoken by 13 bullets fired into his house, accompanied by a note stating, “no data centers.” The councilman had previously expressed support for a proposed data center in a residential Indianapolis neighborhood. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, became a target just days later. As the head of the company that created the now-ubiquitous ChatGPT, Altman has become the personification of AI’s rapid integration across society. A 20-year-old perpetrator from Texas threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s residence before attempting to force entry into OpenAI’s headquarters where he stated, “that he had come to burn down the location and kill anyone inside.” Police confiscated the perpetrator’s manifesto that advocated for the assassination of CEOs of AI companies and their investors, listing their purported addresses. The perpetrator’s digital footprint suggests a progression from an interest in AI safety to concerns about AI as an existential threat, culminating in the endorsement of martyrdom for the cause. In the aftermath of the attack, surveying showed a limited but notable volume of supportive messages to the perpetrator, similar to those that followed the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO in December 2024, allegedly by Luigi Mangione, although at significantly smaller volume.

The perpetrator of the attack on Altman had previously joined a group seeking to pause AI development until safer deployment has been guaranteed and regularly posted to the group’s discord server. However, the group and many other AI-skeptic and AI-concerned organizations have distanced themselves from the incident and the broader use of violence as a legitimate means of protest.

Much of the anti-AI commentary has focused on the perception that AI integration into the economy would further concentrate wealth into the hands of a few dozen stakeholders. Additionally, commentary frequently emphasizes the perceived lack of concern by locally elected officials on the issue. Environmental concerns and electricity rates often feature in this stream of commentary. Anxieties about the prospects of widespread job automation often mesh with broader anti-corporate sentiment and the perceived insufficient institutional response.

In a new study for the CTC Sentinel at West Point, Yannick Veilleux-Lepage posits that AI is a technology shaping the social conditions from which violence has historically emerged. He argues that the pace of AI adoption across society and the accountability gap, defined as the fact that AI systems distribute decision-making in such a way that no clear individual is identified as having made a harmful decision, are establishing the conditions from which violence emerges. Veilleux-Lepage further suggests that as high-prolife targets like tech executives harden their security, grievances will cascade downward, and targets may change. For example, locally identifiable officials who have no hard protection and who represent the hinge at which abstract AI development projects become a concrete local decision, could be targeted instead.

Throughout The Soufan Center’s own surveying, this has already come to bear. Some of the most threatening rhetoric emerges in the context of such local decision-making in the construction of new data centers. While the majority of violent rhetoric threatens to physically target data centers, local community officials are often the target of vitriolic campaigns by anti-data center activists. Within the U.S., where opposition to data centers has largely become a local political issue, with federal guidance or policymaking largely lacking, it is expected that local elections will become a key battleground for non-violent AI resistance to manifest. However, this could also become a pressure cooker for violent acts against candidates in support of data centers. A report from the research firm Data Center Watch, stated that by the end of 2025, “hundreds of local opposition groups were active across 42 U.S. states, with activity accelerating sharply in Q3 and Q4.” To some extent, a contagion effect appears to have been in motion when it comes to resistance to data centers specifically. Reporting and first-person narratives shared online about water pollution, rising electricity bills, incessant noise, and the lack of jobs in districts with operational data centers have rapidly led to other communities pre-emptively seeking to stop their construction.

There is also a growing international dimension to anti-AI and anti-data center sentiment. In February 2026, Malaysia saw its first protest at a data center construction site with residents citing environmental and health concerns. In Spain’s Aragon region, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and other U.S. companies have steadily developed a European data center hub, triggering widespread opposition and legal challenges. In this case, anger also primarily appears directed at elected officials rather than the foreign technology companies. Similar dynamics have emerged in Finland, France, Chile, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. This speaks to people’s primary grievance often being the insufficient response of institutions perceived as the primary vanguard of people’s interests. Additionally, the Gaza War and the Iran War have sparked global debate about the use of AI tools in conflict, whether for intelligence synthesis, target selection, or autonomous weapons. The Iran War has also exposed that data centers based in the Persian Gulf may become targets in times of conflict. Yet, based on current online anti-AI content, largely focused on economic concerns and quality of life issues, the true scale of violent resistance to AI and data centers is likely to crystallize as the technology is further embedded in the global economy and job displacement accelerates.