Google’s Fort Wayne data center is now operational, and this forum was the first real public airing of concerns about its power and water footprint.
Utility reps stressed they have enough generation and water capacity to serve Google without raising residential rates or compromising reliability, which is the core AI infra signal here.
Google admitted it mishandled early communication and promised a new website to centralize project details and Q&A, but that mostly shifts scrutiny online instead of providing hard usage and capacity numbers.
Residents read the event as PR, not disclosure, and left without concrete figures on MW draw, incremental grid upgrades, or long-term water consumption, which keeps risk perception high.
For operators, this shows how quickly community trust erodes when hyperscale builds precede transparent discussion of energy, cooling, and utility contracts.
For vendors and other cloud providers, the takeaway is simple: if you want to keep AI buildout on schedule, get specific on infra impacts early, not after the GPUs are already racked.
The article is worth a read for the texture of local pushback and how Google is trying to manage the narrative under pressure.
