Why 69% of Americans Now Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Towns

Americans are using AI more than ever, yet most don't want the machines that power it anywhere near their homes. New polling shows opposition to local AI data centers has hit roughly 7 in 10. We unpack the water, the power bills, the fears, and the irony.

We love the chatbot. We just don't want its house next door.

Here's a contradiction worth sitting with. An NBC News Decision Desk poll, run with SurveyMonkey from August 20 to September 1, 2026, found that 52% of Americans now use AI tools often or sometimes, up six points in a year. The same poll found that 69% oppose building an AI data center in their local area, including 45% who strongly oppose it.

We want the output. We don't want the factory.

It's not one poll. It's a trend.

The NBC figure isn't an outlier. Gallup found in March 2026 that 7 in 10 Americans oppose a data center in their area, with 48% strongly opposed. A Heatmap poll of registered voters in mid-August put opposition at 75%, and found only 4% would strongly support a nearby facility, down from 13% a year earlier.

This has become an election issue. Republican and Democratic officials have proposed moratoriums. In July 2026, activists organised more than 140 protests across 42 states. President Trump has pushed back hard, posting that communities rejecting data centers risk ending up "backwards and poor." Yet even Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump ally, has said the industry got the backlash it deserved.

What are people actually worried about?

Gallup asked opponents to explain their views in their own words. The answers are revealing:

• Resources (about half of opponents): heavy use of water and electricity, each mentioned by 18%.

• Pollution (16%): noise, air, and water pollution.

• Quality of life (about 1 in 5): traffic, population growth, and a preference to use the land for something else.

• Money (about 1 in 5): higher utility bills, rising living costs, and taxpayer subsidies.

• AI itself: the remainder cited broader worries about artificial intelligence, from jobs to privacy and surveillance.

The NBC poll adds context: 70% of Americans say they're more worried than excited about AI, and 81% say the government isn't doing enough to regulate it.

The power bill problem

The electricity concern isn't imaginary. PJM, the grid operator covering 13 states and Washington, D.C., saw capacity prices jump from $28.92 per megawatt-day in 2024/25 to the capped maximum of $329.17 for 2026/27. The market's independent monitor estimated data centers drove 63% of the increase in the 2025/26 auction, around $9.3 billion recovered from customers through higher bills. Average US city electricity prices rose from about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2019 to about 19 cents in early 2026.

To be fair and precise: researchers at Rutgers analysed ZIP-code data and found no clear jump in residential bills right next to new data centers, at least not yet. That's because costs are spread across whole utility regions. So your bill may rise because of a data center two states away, which is arguably even more frustrating.

The water problem

Large data centers can use millions of gallons of water for cooling. In drought-hit regions like Arizona, where the Colorado River's biggest reservoirs sit far below historic levels, that's an existential question. In Goodyear and Buckeye, Arizona, local pushback helped defeat a $14 billion data center project when authorities refused the rezoning it needed.

The irony

The backlash is sharpest in places that are otherwise pro-technology. Suburbs full of remote tech workers, whose jobs run on cloud computing, are packing zoning meetings to block the very infrastructure that makes their jobs possible.

Is that hypocrisy? Partly. Economists call it NIMBYism: supporting something in general but not in your own backyard. But there's a deeper point. Researcher Kate Crawford, in Atlas of AI, argues that the word "cloud" hides AI's physical reality: land, minerals, water, energy and labour. For years that cost was invisible. Now it's arriving in people's towns, and they're seeing the bill for the first time.

Political theorist Langdon Winner asked, in a famous essay, whether artifacts have politics. A data center does: it decides whose water, whose land and whose electricity budget subsidises everyone else's convenience.

Is the opposition always right?

Not necessarily. Data centers can bring construction jobs and significant local tax revenue, which can fund schools. The polling is mixed here: in one survey 24% of Americans saw them as mostly bad for jobs and 22% as mostly good, with many unsure. Some fears are overstated, and some communities have negotiated strong deals, requiring developers to pay for their own power, use recycled water, or contribute to local funds.

The productive question isn't "yes or no to data centers?" It's "on what terms?" Who pays for new power lines, where the water comes from, and whether tax breaks are worth it are exactly the questions residents are now forcing onto the table.

How many times did you use AI this week, and would you still use it as much if the data center were on your street?

Sources: NBC News Decision Desk poll via Forbes and the Spokesman-Review (Sept 2026); Gallup (May 2026); Heatmap Pro/Embold via TechRadar (Aug 2026); IEEFA (PJM capacity prices); CEPR (April 2026); Rutgers Policy Lab (July 2026); Consumer Reports (March 2026).nt