[swatcoder]

Modern data centers are effectively mines, but without even the upside of supporting a local economy.

They extract local resources (land, power, grid capacity, water, etc) and sell that as compute. As a rule, the mine operators are national or multi-national firms that have no presence with which to invest the extraction profits back into the community. The local resources are harvested, processed, and sold, and then the proceeds disperse into the books of these gargantuan, far-off operators.

The only way to recover some of the profits on those local resources where they're being harvested would be with taxes or similar ongoing development obligations, but the firms specifically predate on communities too politically weak to levy those against them.

If AI isn't just an speculative bubble with gross overinvestment, they may have important value as a national economic or security interest, but they're pretty terrible and lop-sided deal for existing communities. That's why they're kept quiet.