Open land, big skies, lots of grass — no data center. Some residents of rural New York area oppose big development.

Alabama's website contains has a link to STAMP information, but the page contains
surprisingly little information.  

Rural New Yorkers are voicing opposition to a proposed data center in Alabama, New York, a mostly agricultural community in Genesee County with roughly 1,600 residents, reports Mark Sommer of The New York Times. Area residents "fear the sprawling center’s droning supercomputers will disturb Indigenous communities and animal life, strain the power grid and raise utility rates."

The $19.4 billion complex -- dubbed the Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park — or STAMP — would cover 2.2 million square feet, and "be constructed roughly a mile from the territorial home of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation," Sommer writes. The massive data campus would also sit near the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and several smaller wildlife sanctuaries. 

Location of Genesee County in New
York (Wikipedia map)

As the Genesee County Economic Development Center moves the project forward, more residents are raising objections. Sommer reports, "The center’s opponents are also considering a lawsuit, which could delay it or stop it entirely."

Arthur Barnes, a resident of Shelby, a town just north of Alabama, told the Times, "I can’t think of one good reason for it. . . . Of all the places to put something like this, did they have to put it right next to a sovereign nation and a national wildlife refuge?"

If STAMP is built, area residents worry that their electricity rates will soar. Sommer explains, "The three states with the nation’s highest concentration of such data centers — Illinois, Virginia and Ohio — saw their electricity bills increase twice as much or more than the national average in August 2025 as compared with the ​​​​same month in 2024."

Area residents who support STAMP say the fees and taxes it will pay will make the inconveniences it causes worth it. The Genesee County Economic Development Center can "expect $145 million in fees," Sommer reports. "Genesee County, Alabama and the local school district would also receive a combined $285 million over the course of STAMP’s 30-year contract."