Data center industry courts schoolchildren as backlash grows
WIRED reports that industry groups and companies are turning to schools and children as pushback against large data center build-outs intensifies. The nonprofit 7x24 Exchange International recommends a children's book, "What is a Data Center?", and runs "International Data Center Day," offering schools coloring pages, crossword puzzles and a science project. In May, AFCOM's Potomac chapter distributed Memorial Day flag kits and cards citing the industry's local economic impact to 3,100 first graders at 37 Loudoun County, Virginia schools, and WIRED's tally of public blogs and social posts found at least eleven companies or industry groups have hosted student data center field trips since 2025, including Sabey and Amazon. Alex Molnar of the University of Colorado Boulder called such school outreach corporate propaganda, arguing children are in no position to evaluate it and should be protected by their districts.
The reporting shows the data center industry adopting the school-outreach playbook used by tobacco and oil and gas companies to shape how the next generation views its infrastructure amid local backlash.
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The nonprofit 7x24 Exchange International wants to promote data centers, which they believe are "mission critical” infrastructure. As part of this work, the group recommends a children’s story, “What is a Data Center?,” which follows a honey badger named Honey who gets a guided tour of a data center from a worker named Oliver. Oliver explains that the job of data center employees is to make sure that the “functions supported by the data center” are available to anybody, “no matter what time it is.”
"Like when my mom shops online late at night because my dad is sleeping and won't know about it?" Honey asks.
The story is part of a broader pattern across the data center industry. In addition to lobbying, job creation programs, tax breaks, companies and interest groups are trying something a bit more creative: winning over the youth. As pushback to massive data center build-outs and energy-guzzling campuses intensifies, the industry is apparently taking a softer approach to community building using a tactic other industries with a public relations problem have tried.
#7x24 Exchange International#AFCOM#Sabey#Amazon#Microsoft#Vantage#Yahoo#International Data Center Day