The Danville Register & Bee, a local newspaper in southern Virginia with a circulation under 4,000, recently featured a striking front-page headline: “LEADER: CHINA BEHIND THE MISCONCEPTIONS.” The headline accompanied a photo showing two homes overshadowed by a nearby data centre.

Vic Ingram, chair of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority (RIFA), a joint economic development body for Danville and Pittsylvania County, has played a key role in securing what officials describe as the largest economic development project in southern Virginia’s history. The project involves building a data-centre campus on a 3,500-acre (1,416-hectare) industrial site at Berry Hill, approximately 16 kilometres outside Danville.

Despite the project's significance, some local residents have voiced concerns at public meetings and on social media about its environmental impact, high power consumption, and the lack of transparency in its approval process. As opposition grew, Ingram told the local newspaper in June that much of the online “propaganda” against the area’s first data centres was driven by the “Communist Chinese.”

This local resistance highlights challenges facing efforts to expand AI infrastructure in the U.S., including skepticism toward Big Tech initiatives in smaller communities.

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