Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed.

> WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seven in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor. > These results, from a March 2-18 Gallup survey, represent the first time Gallup has asked about data center construction, a topic that has met fierce opposition from local residents in many parts of the country. These data centers house computing equipment that helps power AI technology used by businesses, universities and other institutions. The centers cover large areas of land, require extensive amounts of electricity to operate and need substantial water to cool the equipment, raising concerns about their impact on the environment and local electric bills. https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx Anecdotally, I've been hearing about opposition to data center construction, so this polling data is the first confirmation I've seen. Given the political unpopularity of data centers, the market may be pricing in growth rates that are unrealistic. In the early stages of the AI cycle, the broader public remained largely unaware of data centers' impact on electricity, water, and land use, so AI companies were able to keep scaling quickly, but now that these issues are well-known, continued rapid growth appears less realistic if the bottleneck becomes land/electricity and not semiconductors/memory.