Maryland Activist Celebrates Blocking a $5 Billion Data Center on a Long-Dead Mall Site

An activist in Maryland is celebrating after helping stop a planned $5 billion artificial intelligence data center that would have replaced a shopping mall closed for almost a quarter century, Townhall reported, leaving the lot vacant with no new jobs or tax revenue ^[1].

The site

The data center was planned for a vacant lot in Landover, Maryland, where the Landover Mall once stood, The Post Millennial reported ^[2]. The mall closed in 2002 and the land has been mostly empty since ^[2]. The project had been set to break ground in 2026 or 2027 and was reportedly blocked by a moratorium ^[2].

How the campaign grew

The Post Millennial reported that the activist's petition against the project drew only about 180 signatures between June and August 2025 ^[2]. It grew to more than 20,000 signatures after she worked on an Instagram video with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a group the outlet says is largely backed by billionaire Neville Roy Singham, an American living in China ^[2]. Legal Insurrection reported that NPR celebrated the activist's campaign without noting those ties ^[3].

The activist cited worries about water pollution and diesel generators near homes, The Post Millennial reported ^[2]. The outlet noted that many modern data centers use closed-loop cooling systems that recycle water ^[2].

A national trend

Maryland is not alone. Legal Insurrection reported that 40 American data center projects have been rejected by voters ^[3]. Across the country, towns are weighing the promise of jobs and tax revenue against concerns about electricity prices, water use and noise.

The fair questions

Data centers raise legitimate questions, and communities should have a say in what gets built next to their homes. They use large amounts of electricity, and families do not want to see their power bills rise to serve tech giants. Those concerns deserve straight answers from developers and utilities.

The questions nobody asked

But Americans should also ask who is funding these campaigns, and why. A petition that sat at a few hundred names for months suddenly took off after a group tied to a China-based billionaire got involved. That deserves at least as much scrutiny as the data center itself.

What was lost

Meanwhile, a dead mall stays dead. For more than 20 years the Landover site has produced no jobs and little tax revenue for Prince George's County. The data center would have brought construction work, long-term jobs and a tax base to pay for schools and police.

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And while American communities block projects one by one, China is building its own AI infrastructure as fast as it can. The race for artificial intelligence will be won by the country that builds. America should not let activists funded from abroad decide that it will not be us.