May 18, 2026
Americans may not be able to agree on much these days, but one thing they're fairly unified on is data centers. Seven out of 10 people (1) surveyed by Gallup said they were opposed to the construction of these facilities in their community.
To underline how fierce resistance is, just 53% of the people said they opposed the building of a nuclear power plant in their area.
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Not all of the opposition to data centers was mild, either. Some 48% of the 1,000 adults Gallup surveyed said they were "strongly opposed" to having one in their area. Just 7% of the people surveyed said they were strongly in favor of having a data center near their home. That minority cited potential economic benefits as the most common reason for their opinion.
Opponents had a wide variety of reasons, but the most common one was environmental concerns about these facilities.
The environmental argument
That's a common complaint from data center opponents. A midsize data center can use up to 300,000 gallons of water per day (2), while larger ones use as much as 5 million gallons. By 2028, the annual amount of water projected to be used by data centers will be enough to support 360,000 households' indoor water use.
Additionally, some data centers use gas power for day-to-day operations, spewing greenhouse gases and other air pollutants into the local environment. And the cooling systems at these facilities are often extremely noisy, with sounds approximating the decibel level of a motorcycle or jackhammer for hours or days at a time.
Some areas where data centers have already been built have also seen their electricity costs increase. In states like Virginia, with a high concentration of data centers, electricity prices have increased by up to 267% (3) over the past five years.
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Quality of life and AI trust issues
Gallup found that 22% of respondents had quality-of-life concerns surrounding data centers, pointing to the impact on property values, health, traffic and how much space the centers take up. And 14% said they just didn't like or trust AI in general.
Among the limited number of proponents, 55% said they supported the building of data centers because they would bring more jobs to the area. Just 6%, however, said they believed AI was the future or that it was inevitable.
That split, says Gallup, could slow the AI expansion if data center operators don't find a way to work better with communities — and the construction debate is likely to be an increasingly important one during local elections.
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"Most Americans appear to be adopting a 'not in my backyard' attitude to building additional data centers, and that attitude is especially intense, given that nearly half strongly oppose that construction," Gallup wrote.
The road ahead
Hundreds of data centers are currently under construction (4) across the country. Major tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Google have all announced multibillion-dollar plans to build data centers.
The boom in development is also being backed by the Trump administration. A 2025 executive order (5) vowed to streamline the approval process and allowed for data centers to be developed on federally owned land.
Despite opposition, it appears data centers are here to stay. But there are some ways communities can coexist with them. A 2025 survey by Navigator Research (6), found an approach that protected consumers from environmental and cost consequences was more appealing to respondents than one that looked to halt construction altogether.
Public support will likely then depend on whether the companies building data centers can win over the communities they're moving into.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Gallup (1); World Resources Institute (2); Environmental and Energy Study Institute (3); Aterio (4); The White House (5); Navigator Research (6)
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Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience at many of the internet's biggest news outlets. In addition to his activities as a writer, reporter and editor, Chris is also a frequent panel moderator and speaker at major conferences, including CES and South by Southwest.
