Among the nearly 100 pages of risk factors outlined in Anthropic PBC’s landmark initial public offering are the catastrophic threats to humanity that have grabbed headlines. But it also flagged a more immediate concern that could derail business: mounting backlash against data centers.

Public controversy and regulatory scrutiny over the environmental impact, land and water use as well as consumption of limited power resources threaten to delay or prevent data-center development, Anthropic warns in the prospectus. That would raise costs and limit its ability to scale, develop and deploy AI models, it says.

The company is right to worry. Hatred toward data centers has united people across the political spectrum and around the globe. Warning that the technology could create existential risks probably doesn’t inspire anyone to want to give the AI boom a physical address in their backyards.

Opposition to the buildout has surfaced in Australia, England, and even rural China. Now, it’s starting to fester in pockets of Japan, just as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pushing massive investment. Anthropic, meanwhile, is reportedly in final talks with NTT Data Group to build one of the country’s biggest data centers near Osaka.

Yet while anxiety around the technology runs high globally, the Japanese are unusually sanguine about it — robots are seen here more as friendly helpers like than . For a smaller, relatively insular economy facing acute labor shortages and demographic pressures, the upsides could be enormous. Many of AI’s current strengths neatly address Japan’s acute gaps: translation in a country that has been flooded with foreign tourists, software engineering in a tech industry historically stronger in hardware than coding, boosting efficiency for small- and medium-size manufacturers, and easing administrative burdens for the growing cohort of elder caregivers. The list goes on.

For now, Japan’s opposition is scattered and local, hardly close to the organized political movement we’re seeing in the US. But there was little excuse anywhere to be so caught off guard. I’ve been tracking the AI backlash for a while now, and the industry’s implicit threat that this might kill us all or take your job has never been an effective way to greet new neighbors. Outside of the Silicon Valley bubble, data centers as the physical manifestation of an abstract tech revolution have become easy targets. It’s more than noise, eyesore or water use. It’s about having a say.

This is partly why the US revolt now goes far beyond NIMBYism. Nearly three-quarters of Americans oppose having a data center in their community, while two-thirds are against new ones. It’s already having a material impact: In the first half of this year alone, at least 106 projects, representing roughly $198 billion in investment, were blocked or delayed, according to Data Center Watch. It offers lessons for Tokyo to not assume these are just isolated groups of Luddites.

Japan has the most favorable environment for data center development among the OECD markets in the Asia-Pacific, given its established digital infrastructure sector, BloombergNEF assessed. It already has some 2GW of operating IT capacity, second in the region only to China. Local opposition is a lurking threat, but the more immediate constraint is power.

These facilities guzzle enormous amounts of energy to run servers and cooling, and Japan has never been energy rich. Power demand from new data centers and chip fabs is expected to rise from less than 1% of the country’s electricity consumption in 2026 to nearly 7% by 2035, SMBC Nikko analysts have said. Addressing this challenge could help catalyze a broader shift toward clean energy.

The government, for its part, seems aware of the problem. Takaichi has pledged a “sufficient and stable supply of electricity” to meet the growing demands from data centers, doubling down on an earlier promise to “take all possible measures” to do so. The policy direction is right, if ambitious. But increasing investments in green energy will help Japan build resilience in the future, not just power these facilities.

Currently, most data center capacity is concentrated in the Greater Tokyo region and Osaka. Mindful of risks in the event of earthquakes or other unexpected shocks, officials have identified potential future sites in Hokkaido, Kyushu and elsewhere. Spreading infrastructure beyond crowded urban areas would also reduce some of the nuisance complaints that have fueled opposition elsewhere.

Japan was initially slow to adopt AI, but usage has finally surged. That delay could now become a second-mover advantage that the country can’t afford to squander as investors start questioning the payoff from the expensive, hype-fueled AI infrastructure spree.

The country has long excelled at developing infrastructure that works for people, from trains that run on time to urban design that fosters community. That could be a major advantage. If Tokyo can construct data centers without neighbors bringing out the pitchforks, it could define what comes next.