Yes: a September 2026 national poll found 61% opposed construction of U.S. data centers to support AI, while 34% supported it. Local polls also find substantial resistance, but they ask different questions and should not be treated as interchangeable measures.
Do Americans oppose AI data centers?
The headline figure comes from a New York Times/Siena poll of 1,503 likely midterm voters fielded in early September 2026. TechRadar reported that 61% opposed and 34% supported construction of AI data centers in the United States. The question was: “In general, do you support or oppose the construction of data centers to support artificial intelligence, also known as AI, technology in the U.S.?” TechRadar’s account of the NYT/Siena poll is the basis for those figures; the article does not provide access to the full poll methodology.
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That is a national construction question, not a question about whether respondents want a facility built near their homes. Separate local polls also show resistance, though their wording, populations and dates differ.
How do the polls compare?
| Poll | Who and when | Question and result | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York Times/Siena, reported by TechRadar | 1,503 likely midterm voters; early September 2026 | 61% opposed and 34% supported U.S. construction of AI data centers | National construction; not explicitly local. The full poll is not available in the cited account. |
| UMass Poll | 1,000 respondents; August 21–26, 2026; reported margin of error 3.5 percentage points | 65% opposed, 11% supported and 24% neither for an AI data center in their local community | Local, AI-specific siting opinion. |
| Pew Research Center | 10,548 U.S. adults; July 20–August 9, 2026 | 60% said they would be not too or not at all comfortable with a new data center operating in their area | Local comfort, not support or opposition; the wording does not specify AI. |
| Gallup | U.S. adults; March 2–18, 2026 | 71% opposed local AI data-center construction, including 48% strongly opposed | Local, AI-specific opposition. |
| Annenberg Public Policy Center | 1,320 U.S. adult citizens; June 16–July 19, 2026; full-sample margin of error ±3.5 points | 61% opposed a new data center in their area, up from 49% in the survey ending in March | Local siting trend; the reported wording does not specify AI. |
These results are not contradictory estimates of one identical question. Some polls name AI and others do not; some ask about the country, some a respondent’s area, and Pew asks about comfort rather than support or opposition. The samples and field dates also differ. The safest takeaway is that opposition is substantial across several measures, not that every poll found the same level of opposition.
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What worries people about local facilities?
UMass asked opponents to explain their views in open-ended responses, then categorized those comments. Environmental and natural-resource concerns accounted for 28% of the coded opposition comments; land use and local disruption, 15%; general distrust of AI or the industry, 13%; and utility bills or costs, 10%. These are shares of comments categorized by the poll, not percentages of all Americans or a ranking of every possible concern.
In Pew’s comparison of January and August 2026, the share saying data centers would have a mostly bad impact rose from 39% to 54% for the environment, from 38% to 50% for home energy costs, and from 30% to 49% for nearby quality of life. Pew also found mixed expectations about local jobs and tax revenue: depending on the impact asked about, 21%–24% said mostly good and mostly bad in similar shares, while 18%–32% were unsure or unfamiliar.
Gallup’s local-construction poll separately found that two-thirds of people who favored construction cited economic benefits, and 55% of proponents mentioned job opportunities specifically. Those are supporters’ stated reasons, not an independent measurement of net jobs created by a data center.
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No. Opposition to building data centers locally is not the same as opposition to AI as a technology. The Annenberg Public Policy Center reported that local data-center opposition increased while broader assessments of AI’s national impact and views on AI regulation remained statistically unchanged from its earlier survey.
The national NYT/Siena results also suggest that opposition to construction can coexist with other priorities: TechRadar reported that most voters did not rank the issue among their top priorities compared with economic and foreign-policy concerns. Its summary said 56% favored limits on AI data centers and 38% supported a total ban on further construction. Those figures, too, are attributed to TechRadar’s account of the poll.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the numbers do—and do not—tell us
Across the polls, many respondents resist new data-center construction, especially when asked about a facility in their community. But polling captures attitudes, not the outcome of a particular local approval process, the effects of a specific project, or a settled view of AI in general. The available figures support a clear conclusion about broad public skepticism toward new facilities; they do not establish that every community will oppose every project or that a facility’s costs and benefits are the same everywhere.
UMass Poll director Tatishe Nteta summarized the local result this way: “Nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their local communities, and this opposition cuts across the political and demographic spectrum.”
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