[user43928]

Data centers are known to create few local jobs while requiring upgrades to the power grid or water infrastructure.

Wouldn't that make it important to subsidize them at the national level, precisely for that reason? Otherwise it seems likely to be a NIMBY problem.

But now I'm talking about data centers, the main thing we lack here is AI research labs, is it not? I think those should create many jobs.

[TalkingCodeMonk]

Why should taxpayers anywhere pay private enterprises to create infrastructure they own and control for-profit, rather than just cutting out the monopoly middle man and establishing that infrastructure as a public utility who services the domestic economy, equally?

This is the kind of madness I'm talking about. If taxpayers have to subsidise products and services the "free" market refuses to provide, they should have direct ownership in the profits; not just the losses. Why is the default for society to subsidise expenses and privatise profits? That is ideologically-driven dogmatic insanity, which allows select individuals and foreign entities control over the national economy and its security, and is the entire reason madmen in the USA have the EU (and world) by the balls.