Welcome back to Power Play, the weekly column where we dig into the biggest issue of this midterm season: data centers. Normally, senior writer Molly Taft is your guide through the sprawling, humming, energy-hungry world of server farms, but this week she’s out, so I’m Caroline Haskins, stepping in to bring you a story that might seem small and sweet on the surface, but is actually part of a much larger and more strategic effort to shape how the next generation thinks about one of the most controversial industries on the planet. If you have thoughts, questions, or tips, you can reach me at [email protected] or securely on Signal at carolinehaskins.61. Today, we’re going to talk about data centers, children’s books, and the surprising lengths an industry under fire will go to in order to win hearts and minds. Because while data center companies are busy building enormous campuses, consuming massive amounts of electricity, and facing backlash from residents and environmentalists, they’re also quietly focusing on a much smaller audience: first graders. That’s right. The data center industry is trying to win over kids, and they’re using some old, familiar tactics from other industries with public image problems. It’s a story about honey badgers, flag-making kits, and the uncomfortable overlap between education and corporate public relations.
Let’s start with the honey badger. A nonprofit called 7×24 Exchange International, which exists to promote data centers and the people who work in them, believes that data centers are “mission critical” infrastructure. To help spread that message, the group recommends a children’s story called “What is a Data Center?” The book follows a cute honey badger named Honey who gets a guided tour of a data center from a friendly worker named Oliver. During the tour, 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.” Honey, being a curious and clever little badger, tries to understand what that actually means in everyday life. She asks Oliver, “Like when my mom shops online late at night because my dad is sleeping and won’t know about it?” It’s a charming, relatable moment, and on its face, it seems harmless. A cute animal learning about the cloud, or at least about the physical buildings that make the cloud possible. But this book is not just a fun story for bedtime. It is part of a deliberate effort by the data center industry to shape public opinion, and specifically to shape the opinions of people who are too young to question what they’re being told. The goal is to make data centers seem as natural and necessary as the sunrise, and to make the people who run them seem like friendly tour guides rather than corporate executives overseeing some of the most resource-intensive buildings ever created.
That broader pattern is important to understand. The data center industry has long relied on traditional methods of influence: lobbying lawmakers, creating jobs, and securing enormous tax breaks from local governments eager for economic development. But as pushback to massive data center build-outs intensifies, companies and interest groups are trying something a bit more creative. They are trying to win over the youth. This is not a random or innocent decision. It’s a strategic response to growing criticism of data centers, which are increasingly being challenged by community groups, environmental activists, and even some local politicians. People are worried about the huge amounts of electricity these facilities consume, the water they use for cooling, the noise they generate, the land they take up, and the strain they put on local infrastructure. In places like Northern Virginia, where data centers have multiplied rapidly, residents have shown up to public meetings to protest new developments. In other parts of the country, similar fights are breaking out. Faced with this kind of resistance, the industry has realized that it needs a softer approach to community building. It needs to tell its story in a way that makes people feel good about data centers rather than suspicious of them. And what better way to do that than to start with children, who might then go home and tell their parents that data centers are wonderful, or who might grow up with a positive view of the industry baked into their earliest memories? It’s a long-term public relations strategy, and it’s borrowed from some of the most controversial industries in American history.
Alex Molnar, a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the National Education Policy Center, has studied this phenomenon for years. He told WIRED that, for over a century, industries with an image problem—fast food, tobacco, oil and gas—have brought their messaging into schools. “A very, very big reason why corporations get involved in the schools is, quite simply, corporate propaganda—for the purpose not necessarily of selling a product, but of telling their ‘story,’” Molnar said. That is an important point. The data center industry isn’t exactly trying to get first graders to buy a specific product. There is no data center cereal box or action figure. Instead, the industry is trying to position itself as a vital, friendly, and necessary part of modern life. The children’s book about Honey the honey badger is a perfect example. It presents data centers as places where nice people work hard to make sure you can shop online at any hour. It doesn’t mention climate change, or the fact that data centers are driving up electricity demand in many regions, or that some of them are built on land that used to be forests or farmland. It doesn’t mention the fights over who pays for the new power lines and substations needed to keep these facilities running. It doesn’t mention the diesel generators or the water consumption. It just tells a simple, sweet story about a little badger and a kind worker named Oliver, and it leaves children with the impression that data centers are simply there to help. That is corporate storytelling at its most effective, and it is happening in classrooms and homes across the country, often without parents or teachers even realizing the agenda behind the cute characters.
If you’re wondering whether this is actually happening on the ground, consider this concrete example from May. The Potomac chapter of the Association for Computer Operations Management, which goes by AFCOM and serves as a trade group for the data center industry, sponsored Memorial Day-themed flag-making kits to be distributed to 3,100 first graders across 37 schools in Loudoun County, Virginia. Loudoun County, if you don’t know, is sometimes called “Data Center Alley” because it has one of the highest concentrations of data centers in the world. So this wasn’t just a random act of community kindness in an ordinary school district. It was a targeted effort in the heart of data center country, where the industry is both a massive economic engine and a source of intense local controversy. The flag-making kits were designed to help first graders celebrate Memorial Day, which is a time to honor American veterans. That sounds like a wholesome and patriotic activity, and for many children, it probably was. But alongside the flags and the craft supplies, the kids also received an informational card with statistics about “the positive impact” that the data center industry has on the local economy. Think about that for a moment. A Memorial Day craft activity, which is supposed to be about remembering the people who died serving their country, was also used as an opportunity to hand children promotional materials about an industry that is currently facing scrutiny from some of their very own neighbors and family members. The card probably talked about jobs, tax revenue, and maybe schools and roads that data centers help fund. It probably didn’t mention the environmental costs or the fact that some residents feel the industry has too much power over local government. The children, meanwhile, were simply happy to be making flags, and they likely didn’t understand that they were also being given a corporate message. That is precisely the problem. It’s not that first graders shouldn’t learn about local industries or how the internet works. It’s that this kind of outreach is designed to build goodwill and shape public opinion under the guise of education and patriotism, and it’s happening in spaces where children are a captive audience.
So what does all of this mean? It means that the data center industry, like so many industries before it, has learned that the best way to avoid problems in the future is to control the narrative now. If children grow up believing that data centers are essential, friendly, and even heroic, then they are less likely to question the costs when they become voters, taxpayers, and community members. They may be more willing to accept data centers in their neighborhoods, more likely to see them as a source of pride rather than concern, and less likely to push back when the industry asks for more tax breaks or more electricity. It’s a clever strategy, and it’s not illegal or even inherently evil. Many people who work in data centers genuinely believe that they are providing a crucial service, and in many ways, they are right. Data centers power the internet, and the internet has become as essential as water and electricity for millions of people. But that doesn’t mean the industry should be immune to criticism, and it definitely doesn’t mean that children should become unwitting participants in a public relations campaign. When a company sponsors a school activity, it is natural for the company to want a little credit. That’s how sponsorship works. But when the activity is designed to deliver a favorable message to children about a controversial industry, without any context or opposing viewpoint, it crosses a line into something more troubling. It is a way of using the trust that families place in schools and educational materials to launder a corporate agenda. And it is happening all around us, from children’s books about honey badgers to Memorial Day flag kits in Virginia. The data center industry is not alone in this. It is following a well-worn path laid by tobacco companies, oil companies, and fast food chains. But that doesn’t make it any less noteworthy. In fact, it makes it all the more important to pay attention, because we have seen before what happens when an industry is allowed to write its own story without anyone asking hard questions.
At the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves what kind of relationship we want between corporations and schools, and between corporations and children. There is something almost charming about the idea of a honey badger learning about data centers, and there is certainly nothing wrong with children learning about the infrastructure that makes their favorite websites and video games work. But we should be honest about what is happening. This is not simply education. It is advocacy. It is an effort to build a generation of supportive citizens, and it is being paid for by companies that have a very clear stake in the outcome. The children receiving those flag kits in Loudoun County are not lobbyists, and they shouldn’t be treated as a public relations audience. They are kids, and they deserve to learn about their community in a way that respects their intelligence, their curiosity, and their right to form their own opinions. That means schools and parents should be wary of materials that come from industry groups, especially when those materials are designed to make a controversial issue seem simple and one-sided. It also means that journalists and citizens should continue to ask questions about who is sponsoring educational programs, what messages those programs are delivering, and what the sponsors hope to gain. Honey the honey badger might not have a hidden agenda, but the people behind her certainly do. And the sooner we recognize that, the better equipped we will be to have a real conversation about data centers, energy, climate, and the future of our communities. That conversation should include all voices, not just the ones wrapped in colorful flags and friendly animal stories. Because if there’s one thing the data center industry seems to understand deeply, it’s that the stories we tell children today shape the world we live in tomorrow. The only question is whether we let those stories be written entirely by corporate interests, or whether we insist on telling a fuller, more honest story ourselves.
