OCALA, FL (352Today.com) – Every text message, Google search, TikTok video and ChatGPT reply has to live somewhere. Data are not an invisible, weightless notions floating in the cloud. Data require electricity, cooling, land and water. And the places that house data are called data centers.
As artificial intelligence, social media, and smartphones have become permanent fixtures of daily life, the infrastructure that makes them possible has grown just as quickly, often faster than the public conversation about what that growth actually costs. In Marion County, that conversation is now unavoidable.
After the July 21, 2026, Marion County Board of County Commissioners meeting, residents took to social media to voice strong opposition to data centers in the county and to the very idea of holding a workshop on the subject. That workshop is now scheduled for Sept. 1, 2026. The overwhelming majority of public comments online reflected not just resistance, but confusion and anxiety about what data centers really are, how much water and power they use, and what their arrival could mean for a community already wrestling with growth and limited resources…