A Republican Lawyer Leads Ohio Effort to Halt Data Centers

A lifelong Republican and small-town attorney in Brown County, Ohio, is leading an effort to stop the building of large data centers in communities across the state. Nick Owens is working to halt the buildout of hyperscale data centers, which are very large facilities that house the computers used to run artificial intelligence (AI), according to NPR.

Owens is active in Mt. Orab, a village of 4,300 people described as a rural community on the outer edge of Cincinnati. Property records show that 1,000 acres of farmland and wooded land near the village were sold to a data center developer in 2024 and 2025.

Owens co-founded a group called Conserve Ohio with another local attorney and a real estate agent. The group describes itself as made up of Democrats, Republicans and Independents united in an effort to preserve Ohio from hyperscale data center expansion. It has built a volunteer network in nearly all 88 Ohio counties.

Conserve Ohio is behind ballot initiatives in 10 communities. Each would amend a local charter, the document that sets out how a city or village is governed, to prohibit construction of large-scale data centers used to power AI. The group is also pursuing a petition to amend the Ohio Constitution to ban large-scale data centers statewide. Its goal is to put that question to voters in 2027.

Tech companies first came to Ohio more than a decade ago, drawn by inexpensive and abundant land, energy infrastructure and generous tax breaks. The state has seen some of the fastest data center growth in the country. Ohio lost more than $2 billion in sales-tax revenue from data center incentives in 2024 and 2025, according to Reuters.

The issue is also a central theme in Ohio's midterm election. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat and former senator, and Jon Husted, a Republican and current senator, are opponents in the race. Brown has cast Husted as the face of data centers, according to NPR. Many Ohio residents are unhappy with how quickly the state's buildout has moved.

Even so, only 3 percent of likely Ohio voters said data centers and artificial intelligence were the most important issue in determining their vote, according to the New York Times.

At the federal level, the U.S. Senate failed to advance a bill aimed at addressing voter worries about data centers and their effect on energy bills, according to the Associated Press. President Donald Trump defended data centers powering AI projects during a campaign rally in Ohio, the AP reported in a separate story. The state is also suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition for data centers, according to the AP.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has issued an order directing AEP Ohio to put measures in place to protect other customers from potential data center costs.