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As data centers have grown and proliferated, so too has the backlash. <\/p>\n
A new Harvard\/MIT poll found 40% of people supported the building of a data center in their area, with 32% opposed when asked about the building of different industrial facilities in their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
One fun tidbit from the survey, per Axios<\/a>: More people would rather have an e-commerce warehouse.<\/p>\n Two-thirds of respondents in the 1,000-person poll conducted in November were worried that a new data center in their region would nudge electricity prices higher<\/a>. Interest in jobs and economic growth helped the case for data centers, according to Axios \u2014\u00a0though that sentiment may fade as most data center projects don\u2019t employ many people<\/a> once they\u2019re up and running.<\/p>\n Another survey, conducted last month and published earlier this week<\/a> by Quinnipiac University, found much more opposition to data center construction. That poll found 65% of Americans oppose building an AI data center in their community. Only 24% of the 1,397 U.S. adults surveyed supported one being built.<\/p>\n The new polls suggest that the debate over data centers is far from settled, and continued discontent from such a large swathe of the electorate is likely to continue spilling over into politics<\/a>. Data centers once worked quietly in the background, more or less. Not anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n