Mounting concern over the rapid expansion of data centers in the United States has pushed accounts online to allege low-frequency electromagnetic fields emitted by the facilities have caused severe health issues across species, including in honeybees and cows. But scientists caution such claims are backed by minimal to no evidence, in contrast to larger, genuine environmental concerns posed by the booming construction projects.

“Farmers are reporting that data centers are killing their bees,” reads the caption of a July 11, 2026 Facebook  post, shared 70,000 times — pinning the death of hives on low-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by surrounding data centers (archived  here).

The same internet personality, Zephyr Zoidis — previously fact-checked by AFP on other environmental and health topics — also claimed “data centers are making calves lifeless” in a separate July 23  post on TikTok.

“The scariest part is the fact that we still don’t have long-term studies on the real impact of these EMFs and data centers on animals,” he added.

Citizen backlash to data centers is  growing in the United States as construction projects ramp up to meet the infrastructure demands of the artificial intelligence boom. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of information from  Data Center Map, as of April 2026, the country had more than 3,000 operational data centers, with 1,500 more in various stages of development nationwide.

But the claims that data centers kill honeybees and leave calves stillborn are unproven, experts warn.

What are EMFs?

EMFs are invisible areas of energy produced by various electric and wireless signals (archived here). Examples of devices emitting these fields include mobile phones, power lines, Wi-Fi routers and microwaves.

It “is a very broad term,” noted Gaby Abou Haidar, engineering and computer science professor at the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut (archived here).

 

 

It is accurate to state that data centers generate EMFs as a part of their normal operations.

How the body processes these signals, is still subject to debate, according to experts.

“The biological response, if any, depends on many parameters, including the frequency, field strength, modulation, duration of exposure, distance from the source and the characteristics of the transmitting equipment. A mobile-phone base station, a Wi-Fi transmitter, a power transformer and a rack of computer servers do not create identical electromagnetic environments,” Abou Haidar told AFP in an August 26 email.

But Frank Barnes, distinguished professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told AFP in an August 25 email that he did not know “of any effects that are as drastic as” what is alleged on social media (archived here).

“Changing oxidative stresses, chemical reaction rates and membrane potentials are things that we often see. Their effects depend on the person’s genetics, history and environmental factors,” he said, citing  2022 research he co-authored (archived here).

In 2016, the World Health Organization also concluded that “current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields” (archived here).

Research on bees, cattle

Bees use Earth’s magnetic field to navigate and move around (archived here). Abou Haidar told AFP this justifies “investigating electromagnetic fields as a possible additional stressor affecting honeybee behavior, particularly orientation and homing.”

Several  studies have extensively established and researched the disruption potential for EMFs on bees’ navigation (archived  here, here and  here).

But the “available evidence does not justify the broad statement that electromagnetic emissions from data centers kill honeybees or cause colony collapse,” Abou Haidar said.

The claims online about cattle are also taken too far, researchers told AFP.

“For cattle, the science does not support claims that EMF from data centers causes stillbirths or severe health problems. Controlled studies show only subtle effects like slight changes in estrous cycles and milk yield,” explained Said Benaissa, a researcher at Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at Ghent University (archived  here).

Additionally, he told AFP in an August 24 email that, in many cases, the complaints expressed by farmers about animal behavior turned out to be related to stray voltage from electrical currents on farms and not EMFs.

Regular maintenance and testing of electrical farm equipment can prevent cattle exposure to such harm (archived  here).

“These are distinct issues, and stray voltage is often resolved with proper electrical upgrades,” Benaissa remarked.

Environmental pressures

Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe said in an August 31 email that when it comes to physical impactsof data centers on living beings, one should look at air pollution, electricity costs, water and land use (archived here and here).

“They also contribute to increasing CO2 emissions if they are powered by fossil fuels,” she told AFP, warning against “sensationalist claims” made online beyond those areas.

Neha Gour, a George Mason University PhD candidate in science communication (archived  here), concurred: “If growing electricity demand is met by additional fossil-fuel generation, the climate consequences are very different from growth supported by additional clean energy.”

Gour said that pe ople should also pay attention to the cumulative impact of these development projects, “the question is not only what one data center does, but what happens when dozens of facilities are added to the same electricity grid, watershed, and region.”

Nevertheless, “it is a much bigger scientific leap to say that a data center caused a particular ecological or health outcome,”she told AFP in a September 3 email.

“If someone observes dead bees, livestock health problems, or another environmental change near a data center, proximity alone cannot establish causation, i.e., that does not necessarily mean the data center caused them. We would need evidence linking that exposure to the observed outcome,” she said.

AFP has previously debunked exaggerated and misleading claims about animal health.