MANY MINDEDThe compute buildout's next fight: forced land sales for power lines
A legal analysis argues that the transmission lines feeding America's new AI data centers could be built across private land whether owners agree or not, through eminent domain, the government's power to take property for public use in exchange for just compensation. The report, by Aaron Walayat, an assistant professor of law at the University of Dayton, was published July 16, 2026 via The Conversation and summarized by Tom's Hardware on July 20.
The mechanism is old but the target is new. Eminent domain can be delegated to private entities such as utility companies, and new high-voltage lines frequently have to cross private parcels; when a landowner refuses to sell, the utility can seek a forced sale. Walayat notes the power is not automatic: a company has to show the line serves a public use, and each state reads eminent domain through its own constitution.
For the abundance story this is the cost side. The compute buildout needs power, power needs wires, and the wires increasingly run over land people did not choose to give up. Opposition is already broad: the report cites a figure that 70% of Americans oppose data centers being built nearby, over land use, noise, water, and electricity, and says opponents blocked 75 planned projects in the first quarter of 2026, including the 2,100-acre Digital Gateway, killed on a newspaper-notice technicality. Meta, meanwhile, has said it wants to grow its Hyperion AI supercluster from 2 GW to 5 GW.
So the pressure runs both ways, and forced land takings are where it concentrates. The honest limit: the account of what eminent domain can and cannot do here comes from a single law professor's analysis, and the 70% figure and the blocked-project count are drawn from that report rather than independently checked in the article.
Source: Tom's Hardware