Across Ohio, massive new data centers are being built to power an array of technologies like artificial intelligence and other data-intensive technologies. Google, Amazon, and Meta have already built large facilities in the state, and more are planned. These facilities consume enormous amounts of electricity, and their rapid expansion is placing new pressure on Ohio’s electric grid, raising concerns that the infrastructure needed to serve them could contribute to higher electricity costs. For an average Ohio family, this translates to roughly a $70 increase on their monthly electric bill just from data center-related electricity demand.

This toolkit offers timely messaging guidance, key talking points, digital assets, and the latest updates to inform our community about the strain of AI data centers.

[This is meant to be the foundation for the big story we are telling about data centers.  Messages should be derived from it and incorporate the concepts, but do not need to be verbatim in every message.]

Explain how today’s data centers boom is violating Ohio values in all parts of the state, identify who is to blame, and offer an alternative vision. 

VALUES: Whether we’re from big cities like Cleveland, or small towns like Columbiana,  most Ohioans want a safe, comfortable place to live that we can afford. 

VILLAIN: But today, the same out-of-state tech billionaires who are holding down our wages and trying to rig our elections in their favor, are getting even richer off our backs. Gov. DeWine and Ohio’s MAGA lawmakers handed them generous kickbacks to build data centers that suck up our resources and push their energy costs onto consumers. 

VISION: We can live in an Ohio where new technology makes everyone’s life better, not just the billionaire class. Let’s come together like people did in Georgia and Connecticut, and call on our leaders to make sure big tech billionaires pay what they actually owe. 

• Lead with values: Ohioans care about their homes and communities. We are also a relatively affordable place to live. 

• Name the villain: Big tech billionaires and the politicians they bankroll. Together they are rigging the rules for their profit and pushing costs onto everyday Ohioans. 

• Show how the problem undermines our values: Big tech’s data centers are driving up costs, taking away our resources, without even paying their fair share in taxes. 

• End with a vision and a call to action: What is the alternative to what we are seeing today? How do we get there?

  
  

• By 2028, an average Ohio family will pay $70 more per month for electricity, because of data center demand. That's real money out of real families' budgets, while profits flow to tech billionaires in California. [NRDC, 09/30/2025]

• Ohio's legislature voted to eliminate the $140 million annual tax incentive for data centers, but Governor DeWine vetoed it. The legislature never tried to override. That's a failure, and Ohioans are paying for it. [Statehouse News, 08/08/2025]

• Ohio is giving data centers mixed signals. It tells them to 'pay their share' while simultaneously handing them $140 million in annual tax breaks. You can't do both.

• Electricity costs surged tenfold in one year, with data centers causing nearly two-thirds of the increase. As a leading data center state, Ohio should lead on policy and not lag behind. [IEEFA, 07/30/2025]

• While other states are regulating, Ohio is opening the floodgates and letting them pass costs to families. Connecticut is requiring data centers to build their own power plants, and Georgia is banning utilities from shifting data center costs to residents. What about Ohio?

SOUND THE ALARM:  

• Share the truth: AI data centers aren’t paying their share in taxes because Ohio is  forcing  families to pay the price.

• Use your voice to inform your neighbors about the strain AI data centers have on our resources.

• CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES: Tell them to end all tax breaks for AI data centers, and have them pay their fair share.

WRITE & SPEAK OUT:

• Publish op-eds or letters to the editor telling them how AI data centers are impacting your environment and daily life. 

• Contact your local government to see what they are doing to stand up to data centers. Demand transparency over NDAs.

• Share stories from your family, small business, or neighborhood about how electricity costs are affecting all of you.

AI Data Centers Content

• Data Centers, Ohio’s Electric Grid, and Your Power Bill - Innovation Ohio

• ‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart - The Guardian

• Data Centers Won Billions in Tax Breaks. Some States Are Balking - Bloomberg

• Building Data Centers Without Breaking PJM - NRDC

• Following DeWine's veto, sales tax break for Ohio data centers survives for now - Statehouse News Bureau

• Projected data center growth spurs PJM capacity prices by factor of 10 - IEEFA

• Inside Central Ohio's data center boom - Axios Columbus

• Views of AI and data centers - Navigator