Building trades unions — long fashioned as the voice of the American worker — are now intertwined with the richest companies in the world as they create America’s artificial intelligence economy.

Unionised workers are employed on a huge number of massive data centre projects and scrambling to recruit new apprentices to feed the explosive demand.

Gaining ‌the approval of local communities has ​become paramount ⁠to building data centres in the U.S., Microsoft President Brad Smith ‌said on Tuesday, as towns across the country ‌increasingly protest the ‌developments.

The ⁠rapid proliferation of Big ⁠Tech data centres is driving up the country’s electricity demand and ​power bills, ‌and drawing scrutiny from states and local communities.

“You have to win over the ‌local community and sustain ​their trust if you are going to build ⁠a (data centre),” Smith said at the CERAWeek conference in ‌Houston. “Obviously what you are seeing in the United States is now a concern about data centres.”

Opposition from towns and counties in ‌the Midwest and Northeast in recent ​months has led to the cancellation of ⁠data centre developments over concerns of ⁠rising power prices, water impact and pollution from ‌accompanying power infrastructure.