People would rather have an Amazon warehouse in their backyard than a data center

As data centers have grown and spread, so has the backlash.

A new poll conducted by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 40% of people support building a data center in their area, while 32% of them oppose when asked about building various industrial facilities in their neighborhoods.

One fun piece of information from the survey, according to Axios: More people prefer having an e-commerce warehouse.

Two-thirds of respondents to the 1,000-person survey in November expressed concern that the construction of a new data center in their area would lead to higher electricity prices. Concern about jobs and economic growth has helped boost data centers, according to Axios — though that sentiment may be fading because most data center projects don’t employ many people once they’re up and running.

Another poll, conducted last month and published by Quinnipiac University earlier this week, found much greater opposition to building data centers. This poll found that 65% of Americans oppose building an AI data center in their community. Only 24% of 1,397 American adults surveyed supported building one.

New polls indicate that the debate over data centers is far from settled, and the lingering discontent of this large segment of the electorate is likely to continue to spill over into politics. Data centers were quietly working in the background, more or less. Not anymore.